Akatsuki: The Red Moon
by Chirakka
Summary: A Neji fic i guess, my second fic ever. I'm not good at summaries, so read it if you want to. It's a NejiOC fic, rated for violence and swearing, nothing too bad. COMPLETE
1. Default Chapter

_A/N: Oh right, forgot to add that thingy...Ahem... Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, the characters, concepts, names and related indicia. They are copyright (c) Masashi Kishimoto. (Although I wish I did, heh)_

* * *

"You're not taking me seriously, assholes! Move like you mean it!" yelled Metsuki, throwing another three kunai at a tree stump angrily. A shadow paused in the clearing, holding up it's hands and coming forward towards her.

"Please, Metsuki-sama. Houtan-sama expected us back hours ago. The sun has already set, we should head back," the figure moved into the moonlight, revealing an Akatsuki robe and an odd, slitted face.

"Shut the hell up, Kisame! Get back and do this again!" The Akatsuki flinched and retreated as another form moved forward. "Metsuki-sama, if we do not head back now, Houtan-sama will have our heads. Please listen to me."

Metsuki paused and considered for a moment before replacing her kunai and draping her Akatsuki robe across her shoulders. "Fine, Shoku-san, but only for you. Let's go," Metsuki tied a peice of black cloth over her face, completely covering her eyes. Behind her, eight other forms emerged from hiding spots, all in red and black robes. The one who had spoken with Metsuki earlier fell into step beside her. He was much older than her, around twenty, and had blonde hair and deep grey eyes. On his forhead he wore a Hidden Cloud forehead protector with a slash running through it.

"You've improved alot, Metsuki-sama. Will you be training tomorrow also?"

"No, I'm too tired, and I wanted to ask father something. If he allows it, it should be fun," she replied, kicking at the dirt as she slowly walked back to the Akatsuki's headquarters. Although Metsuki was only twelve, she was revered by all members of the Akatsuki, and regarded as the most powerful aside from her father, and the leader, Houtan. She might have just been respected so much because she was the most treasured item her father posessed.

Metsuki had raven black hair, except for a single red streak in the front, and she always wore a peice of black cloth tied over her eyes. The cloth prevented her from releasing too much chakra, and although she could still see, it did impair her eyesight a little. As she slowly walked back to the headquarters, her loose black hair reached down to her shoulders and fell messily across them. She coughed and sped up, it was getting late.

His voice echoed throughout the chamber, low and dangerous, as he adressed the eight Akatsuki. "If anything had happened, had someone attacked and harmed her in any way, I would have killed you all myself. If this happens again, then I will not-" Houtan was cut off in mid-threat as the door to the meeting room opened and Metsuki walked in.

"Give it a break, father, they don't deserve it. I was the one who wanted to stay and train anyways," she said with a dismissive wave and a small grin. Houtan sighed and dismissed the meeting, sitting down in a chair and rubbing his temples. Black hair fell in front of his pale face as he sighed again.

"What do you want, Metsuki?"

"I came to ask you something. I wanted a nice birthday present this year, so I thought up a perfect one. I just wanted to ask your opinion."

"Oh? And what do you want for your thirteenth birthday?" he asked sitting back and looking into her cloth-covered face. He already knew what the answer would be.

"I want to go and spend some time away from home in another village. I wanted to ask you which one... I need to learn some new jutsu 'cause I'm getting bored."

Houtan sighed and closed his eyes. "I guess I can't refuse this time. I suppose it would be alright to let you stay in Konoha for a little while, as long as you don't destroy it completely. There are enough people after us already, and it's such a hassle to clean up all the blood."

Metsuki celebrated a silent victory inside of her head and stood turning away. She hadn't expected her father to agree. Dashing out of the room before Houtan could change his mind, she headed upstairs to her small bedroom.

The walls and floor were covered with things she had taken from the bodies of her enemies, headbands from other villages, unusual weapons, rare jewels and jutsu scrolls. The ceiling was full of holes from kunai and shuriken and everything was a mess, except for her bed, which she flopped down on, sighing heavily and falling asleep almost instantly.

Through her bandana, she saw the red outlines of the things around her. As she hapily drifted off, the last thing she saw was the full moon outlined in deep, glowing red. A red moon, the Akatsuki. The name she had givin the group of missing-nin because it was what she saw through her own eyes.

Metsuki was awake at precisely sunrise, just as the first slivers of sunlight penetrated through her window. She stared up at the ceiling through the bandana for a moment, before slowly getting up. She felt less enthusiastic about going to Konoha now than she had the previous night, perhaps because she was definitely not a morning person.

Stumbling over to her closet, she opened it a crack and a large black thing flew out, circling the room once before landing on the ceiling, hanging upsidedown from a kunai. It was a large bat.

"Shikon, how'd you get stuck in the closet again?" she mumbled sleepily, picking out her outfit for the journey. She chose a pair of loose black pants, a dark green turtleneck and a black vest. She also removed a clean black bandana and threw it messily on top of her pile of clothing.

Grabbing the pile, she opened the door to her room and went across the hallway to the bathroom and the shower, closing the door and stepping into the shower. She removed her bandana, opening her eyes and seeing the world in colour. Her left eye was pale pink, and her right eye was a strange crystal blue. She blinked a few times before washing out her dirty hair.

Metsuki came out a few minutes later, almost fully awake, and wearing her new bandana. She leaned her head into her bedroom and called out to the bat sleeping on the ceiling. "Shikon! Let's get outta here." The large dark brown bat dropped from the ceiling and landed on her right sleeve, falling asleep again. "Freeloader," she mumbled before walking off again.

She entered her father's meeting room, where he was still at the desk looking over scrolls and maps. "I'm gonna go get Shoku to take me to Konoha. See ya in a while," she said casually, leaving. But Houtan spoke up before she left, "Plese try not to destroy the village this time, Metsuki. I'm getting the Akatsuki to follow you this time. And don't give too many of your secrets away either, that caused alot of trouble last time and took a long time to clean up."

Metsuki snorted and left, walking slowly towards Shoku's room. She opened the door without knocking, as she usually did, but found no Shoku. Grunting in frustration, she turned to leave and look for him, almost knocking over Itachi.

"Watch it, baka! Hey, have you seen Shoku-san?" she said, looking fearlessly into his red sharingan eyes and almost smiling. Although Itachi was the third strongest in the organization, his sharingan had no effect on her due to the fact that her eyes were always covered.

Itachi paused for a moment, shifting slightly before answering, "I believe he is patrolling at the moment, Metsuki-sama. You should find him around the eastern wall."

"Okay then, thanks," she dashed out of the building, her previous night's excitement returning. Jumping easily onto the rooftops, she slipped across the top of the building towards the east wall, where sure enough, she found Shoku sitting alone with his feet dangling off the edge of the wall, fifty feet up.

"Hey, Shoku-san! I need a ride!" called Metsuki as she jumped onto the ledge beside him.

"Metsuki-sama! A ride to Konoha? You're leaving already? But your birthday is tomorrow," said Shoku, turning his head and adressing her. She grinned, and leaped at him, catching him off guard and tipping him off the edge of the wall.

"It's an early birthday present from father! Hurry up, let's go!"

There was no thud as he hit the ground from fifty feet up, but instead a soft whoosh of air as he appeared in front of her, riding on the back of a gigantic eagle. The bat, Shikon, shifted slightly on her shoulder as he woke up.

"Alright then, let's get going," said Shoku as Metsuki leapt onto the bird's back. Shikon took flight, stretching her wings to their three-foot wingspan. The large eagle screeched once before bringing its wings down hard and veering off.

Metsuki fell back into the soft feathers as Shoku stood on the eagle's head with a pair of reins gripped tightly in his hands. Shikon flew ahead of them, leathery wings making a soft snapping noise as she brought her wings down over and over. Metsuki sunk deeper into the downy feathers; she had always loved flying with Shoku.

Her silent endulgement lasted only an hour, when they were a little past half way to the Hidden Leaf.

"Shoku-san, can I drive for awhile? I'm bored," she said, sitting up. She noticed the landscape below had changed dramatically. The canyons and rocks that surrounded and concealed the Akatsuki's headquarters had been replaced with dense forests and a few ponds here and there. Metsuki leaned over the edge of the bird summon's back, loosing her balance in awe of the scenery.

Before she fell though, a black and red robed arm snatched her back as the bird gave a sudden jerk. "Please be careful, Metsuki-sama. You can steer for a little while, but then I'll land it. You'll have to walk for awhile once we land though, a large bird heading towards the Hidden Leaf would look pretty suspicious."

Metsuki stood up, balancing carefully, and walked onto the head of the giant bird, taking the reins and plopping down. It would be a challenge to fly with only being able to see the red and blue outlines of the landscape, but Metsuki enjoyed challenges. She grinned as Shoku relaxed. _Mistake_, she thought.

Jerking the reins, she brought the bird up, flying through the layers clouds higher and higher until the air began to thin. She noticed Shoku on his back behind her, grabbing handfuls of feather for support as she veered left and right. She suddenly forced the bird into a freefall, causing Shoku to fall off and into the air, spinning. She smiled and pulled up as Shoku neared the forest floor.

About twenty feet from the ground, however, he pulled off the Akatsuki robe and held it in his left hand, before ripping off the shirt underneath and casting it away. Two dark blue wings erupted from his shoulders and he pulled up just in time, right before the tips of the trees impaled him. He glided back up towards Metsuki, frowning slightly.

"Was that really neccesary, Metsuki-sama?"

"Heh, of course it was."

Her grin faded though, as Shoku landed expertly beside her in a crouch, wings vanishing as he took back the reins, resuming control.

"We're almost within sight of Konoha, so we should land soon."

Shoku still held onto his red and black robe as he made a few one-handed seals.

"I can't land this giant summon in a thick forest, so be ready, Metsuki-sama," said Shoku. The bird beneath her vanished, and she held her arms out on either side as she pitched forward into a freefall. In a matter of seconds, however, two strong arms wrapped around her waist as Shoku caught her lightly, still grasping his robe.

The blonde-haired Akatsuki carried her slowly towards the forest, landing softly on the mossy ground.

"I'll be okay from here on, so you can go now or whatever," said Metsuki, re-adjusting her bandana and coughing once.

"Alright, Metsuki-sama. Goodbye," Shoku vanished in a puff of smoke, reappearing overhead, flying back west where he would fly the rest of the Akatsuki to Konoha. They were to watch over her as she stayed there, making sure she didn't do anything stupid and that she was not killed.

Metsuki looked up, the hot sun beating down on her. "Damn it's hot," she muttered to herself. She removed her bandana, exposing her pink and blue eyes and looking up once more. The temperature suddenly began dropping as clouds covered the sun and nice breeze started up. "Much better," she sighed before heading east. It was a half-hour walk to Konoha, but she could make it in fifteen.

Looking forward, a large gust of wind started up, and as her eyebrows furrowed in concentration, the trees and branches bent in a straight path before her about three feet in front of her face as she dashed forward with the wind pushing her along. Advanced bloodelines were extremely useful.


	2. Warm Welcomes

Metsuki paused at the edge of Konoha, hiding in the cover of the trees and looking up. She needed a good act to make it look like something horrible had happened or that she had lost her memory in order for them to find her and take her in. She sat down, considering how to go about this and replacing her bandana. The branches behind her had already snapped back into place.

Within a minute she had come up with an easy way to do this. Pain meant nothing to her, although she had a horrible fear of her own blood. She tightened the bandana around her head before lifting it slightly, revealing her left eye. Concentrating on her arms, there was a moment of hesitation before she forced them to spontaneasly combust, both arms bursting into flames. She almost immediately put them out.

Now for the second part of the act. Using her scorched and blistered hands, she brought down the bandana over her eye. She needed only a small amount of effort for what she was about to do. Taking a deep breath, she charged into the open, pretending to collapse and gasp for air. Using only a little chakra and a trace of concentration, she forced the air from her lungs, cutting off her supply of oxygen.

Before she fell unconcious, she saw two forms on the wall looking down at her. _Idiots_, she thought before blacking out.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Metsuki awoke in a hospital bed, both arms bandaged and stinging, but luckily no tubes or blood transfusions going into her body. She hated hospitals and needles and blood and anything else in those categories. The black bandage still covered her eyes, luckily. She was amazed at how easy it had been to get into Konoha.

In about half an hour, just as she was going to go back to sleep, the door to her room creaked open and the blue outline of the nurse's form as she entered the room. There was a moment's silence as they eyed eachother.

"Oh, good, you're awake now. The Hokage-sama wished to see you, but she is quite busy right now, so I'll find someone else to see you."

The nurse bustled out, closing the door partially behind her. Through the gap, Metsuki saw an Anbu standing guard. _Feh, so they aren't so stupid_, she thought.

While she waited alone in the blank white room, she decided to look at her arms. But when she moved them to lift the bandages she realized there were two problems. One, she couldnt use her fingers because they were bandaged together, and two, she could barely mover her arms at all. But she wanted to see what kind of condition they were in, so she bent forward and used her teeth to loosen the edge of the bandages.

Peeking under them, she gasped, _Oops, I think I overdid it. Again_. the burns were horrible, red and pale white with blisters all over and cracked skin. _At least there's no blood..._

The door creaked open again. _Time to play stupid_, she thought. The nurse walked in again, followed by two people. The first was a blonde-haired woman with pigtails, and the second was a dark-haired woman carrying a pig. It was Tsunade and Shizune.

"The Hokage-sama took time off to see you. I'll leave you here," said the nurse, leaving and closing the door._ And cue stupidity and cluelessness..._

"Where am I? Where's father? Wh-who are you?"

"It's okay. I'm The Hokage, the Godaime, and leader of this village, the Hidden Leaf. Do you remember who you are? What's your name?"

_Idiots_. "Ah... Hidden Leaf? Oh... My name is Metsuki. I'm a... (_hmmm... what should I choose..._)... Gennin from... I can't remember. What happened, Godaime-sama?" Metsuki looked down at her arms. "It hurts..."

"You don't remember anything? Hmm... How old are you?"

_Just stupid idiots_. "I'm thirteen. He-he killed them..."

"Hmm... I see. I suppose you'll have to stay here until you remember, if you remember at all..." Tsunade turned towards the door. "Just wait until you recover. I'll most likely see you again in a week or so."

_Bitch._ Tsunade left the room without a goodbye, hurrying down the hall._ I guess I'm stuck in this stupid hospital for a whole week... what am I gonna do during that time? And of all the things I could have chosen, why did I choose to be a Gennin? This means I'll be put on one of those stupid, three-cell teams. Just great._

Shikon landed on the frame of the open window, hanging upsidedown and looking over at Metsuki.

"Just wait, Shikon. One week. Just wait outside. I'll heal these arms myself in a few days anyways."

As Shikon flew off, Metsuki ran cool chakra over the burns, cooling the pain and numbing the burning. Through her bandana, she could make out the blue outline of the Anbu guard still standing at the entrance. Blue meant alive, and red meant not. _Lets start the fun._

Hunching her shoulders, she rubbed them against her head, catching the left side of her bandana and lifting it away from her eyes. She concentrated on the presence of the Anbu's chakra, the blue outline still visible through her other eye. _3, 2, 1... _She watched as the Anbu's arms exploded in flames, and she pushed her bandana back over her eye again, not even putting out the fire. She heard screams as the Anbu's arms slowly turned red as she saw through the cloth. _That should get it started_.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Metsuki yaawned and stared up at the ceiling through the cloth. The Hokage had come and questioned her yesterday about what had happened to the Anbu, and she had acted like someone was after her. An easy show to put on, since people had been after her all her life.

Her arms were almost completely healed, and the Hokage had explained everything to her. Tomorrow she would be assigned to one of the Leaf's gennin teams. Apperently, she was to be assigned to team ten, because one of the team members had recently been promoted to chuunin level.

Every day, Shikon had brought her news about what went on in the village. She had told her about the gennin and about her own team, giving her names and intrests. She was stuck on a team with a girl obsessed with some guy name Sasuke and a big guy obsessed with eating._ Oh well, I came here to make friends, so I guess it'll be interesting to be friends with these people. I just hope father doesn't kill them all like last time..._

Metsuki sighed, but stopped as a sharp pain exploded throughout her body, especially her head. She hunched over, holding her head with her bandaged arms and coughing as the pain entered her lungs. She felt a hot liquid boil into her mouth, blood. _Damnit, I used my bloodline too much. At least it's only a small attack. Ugh... I don't wanna see my blood..._

Swallowing hard, she remained hunched over for a few more seconds before relaxing. At least that was over with. Flopping back on the large pillows, she decided to sleep away the rest of the day. Tomorrow would start it all.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Metsuki sat alone in a meeting room, waiting for her new sensei to show up. He wasn't actually late, but she had come earlier out of boredom. Shikon was hanging from the ceiling in a corner of the room. As she heard three sets of footsteps approaching, she tightened her bandana around her head.

The door opened slowly, followed by a small cloud of smoke, and then by a large man. Behind him was a pretty blonde haired girl followed by a red or brown haired boy eating a bag of chips. It was hard to read the colours through the bandana, as eveything appeared in shades of red or blue, but Metsuki had been used to this her whole life.

"Hey, you must be Metsuki. Welcome to team ten," said the smoking man as he leaned against a wall. "I'm your new sensei, Asuma, and these are Ino," he incicated the blonde, who waved and smiled, "and Chouji." The large boy paused for only a second to wave before going back to eating his chips.

"Why don't you tell us a bit about yourself. You know, dreams or goals or anything you want. When you're done, we can continue with training."

Metsuki paused, before replying. "Uhh... Well, I'm Metsuki. I don't really have any goals or dreams, but I'd like to make friends with everyone here. I specialize in elemental attacks, you know like wind, fire, water and earth. I don't really remember where I'm from, and I only got here a week ago, but I'll enjoy working with you guys. Uhh... is that okay, Asuma-sensei?"

"That's great Metsuki. Let's head out to the training fields. We're working on chakra control this weekend, and you might get a few missions next week due to lack of shinobi," said Asuma, turning and leaving. Metsuki fell into step beside Ino.

"I'm horrible at controlling chakra," she said to Ino as they shuffled outside towards the edge of the village.

"Oh? Well I'm pretty good. I'll help you with it, it's not that difficult once you get it," said Ino, smiling.

When they reached the field, Asuma gave them instructions on tree climbing, promising all-you-can-eat to Chouji if he could reach ten feet. Metsuki almost laughed at how easy it was to convince him to do something. At lunch they were going to meet up with a chuunin, the one who used to be on this team, named Shikamaru.

Metsuki watched as Asuma demonstrated walking up a tree with no hands. _These Leaf nins... they have odd ways of training. Oh well, looks like fun!_

Metsuki watched as Ino and Chouji took a running start towards each of their trees, Ino making it a bit further up and marking where she stopped with a kunai. Picking up her kunai, Metsuki tightened her bandana and ran at the tree, forcing chakra to her feet. She only made it as far as Chouji had before she fell back down.

"Ugh... this is gonna take a long time..."

Metsuki tried a few more times, failing miserably each try, before deciding to test something else. Even Chouji had made it further than her, but she wasn't going to give up.

She walked up to her tree, feeling the eyes of her sensei on her back as her teammates kept on trying. Stopping at the base of the tree and looking up to where her kunai marks were about seven feet up, she lifted her left foot. Placing her foot on the tree, she forced her chakra through it, noticing the contrast of the blue of her foot and the red of the tree as she found the right amount of chakra needed to hold her up. She had large amounts of chakra, but she couldn't control it very well, and she spent another minute testing the tree.

When she took her foot away, she noticed Chouji and Ino, having already reached the ten foot markers (or past in Ino's case), watching her also. _Good_, she thought, _now I can show off._

Going back to the starting point, she tightened her headband and gripped her kunai, grinning. She ran towards the tree, recalling the amount of chakra used before while testing and this time, when she jumped up the tree, she actually stuck to the surface and easily passed the ten foot mark, heading about fifteen feet up before stopping beside Ino's marker. She slid expertly back down the trunk, landing in a crouch beside her teammates, hair falling into her face.

"Wow, that was pretty good, Metsuki. I thought you were horrible at chakra control," said Ino, smiling. Metsuki flashed a smile back at her, before looking up. It was noon.

"That was good for today, but Chouji's getting hungry so we should take a break and get some lunch," said Asuma, glancing at Metsuki and smiling.

They headed back into town, Metsuki walking in silence beside Ino again, watching the hypnotizing red shaped of rocks and dirt pass below her, being crushed by her blue feet.

"Hey, Metsuki?" asked Ino, turning towards her.

"Yeah?" she replied, not taking her eyes off the ground.

"Why do you wear that bandana over your eyes?"

There was a moment's silence as Metsuki noticed that everyone was listening to their conversation, including her sensei who was walking ahead of them. She almost laughed.

"It's for controlling chakra," she replied simply.

"Controlling chakra?"

"Yeah. If I take it off for too long, I would end up accidently destroying everything. I already told you I have no chakra control," said Metsuki, grinning as they approached the restaurant. Lifting her head, she noticed a chuunin leaning against the wall of the building looking out at them with half-closed eyes.

"Hey Shikamaru! How'd the mission go?" asked Chouji, speeding up a bit. Metsuki remained beside Ino as they entered the restaurant.

"It was... such a hassle," replied Shikamaru, sitting down and grabbing one of the menus.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Metsuki stepped out of her temporary apartment which had been provided by the Hokage. It was small and now it was messy, full of weapons that had also been provided. It was friday and her day off from training, but she was going to train anyways. She was bored.

It was pouring rain, but she didn't mind. When she came to the training field, she found two people already there. One was a boy with strange eyes, around him were hundreds of weapons lying on the ground. Off to the side was a tired looking girl in purple or pink. Metsuki paused.

"Who are you?" asked the girl in pink, dropping a kunai and sitting down on a stump, still panting. The boy turned slightly and looked at her also.

"Uh... I'm Metsuki. I just came here to train," she said, smiling and waving as she stepped forward.

"In the rain?" This time it was the strange boy. "I've never seen you before."

"The rain is nothing to stop my training. And I just came to Konoha two weeks ago, so I don't really know anybody except for my teammates." _Maybe I should get rid of the rain..._

"Oh. I'm Tenten and this is Neji. We were just training his-"

"Tenten," said Neji, cutting her off.

"His Byakugan, right? I can see, even though my eyes are covered. I have my own bloodline," she said, grinning and sitting down beside Tenten.

"Bloodline?" asked Neji, turning around fully.

"I don't really like the rain anyways, so I'll show you," she replied standing and walking over towards Neji. _I hope father won't mind, he didn't mind that much last time..._

Metsuki undid the bandana, letting her black hair fall forward over her face, before brushing it aside. She lifted her eyes towards Neji, reveling in his expression which she could now see in full colour. She lifted her pink and blue eyes towards the sky.

Neji and Tenten watched intently as her pinkish eye turned blood red and her crystal blue eye turned stormy grey-blue. And then the rain suddenly stopped. The clouds remained for a moment, before rolling away and revealing the sunlight. There was silence, and Metsuki grinned.

"See?" she said, moving to replace her bandana. But she was stopped by Neji.

"Fight me," he said simply. Metsuki laughed inwardly. _Finally a challenge!_

She dropped her hands, and tied her bandana around her neck instead, turning her gaze towards the dark-haired gennin. _This is going to be fun._


	3. Attack

Ino dashed through the third training field looking for Metsuki. Asuma was looking elsewhere for her by now, probably having found Chouji already. They had a meeting to attend today, and Ino hadn't been able to find Metsuki at her apartment. Something strange was going on. A moment ago it had been pouring rain, then it had disappeared. But now a large dark cloud was gathering overhead again. Strange.

When she came across the next training field, she found Metsuki. But she also found Neji and Tenten. Tenten was crouched on the edge of the field, looking on at the two gennin who were facing eachother. Neji had taken up his fighting stance, and so had Metsuki. Ino slipped over to Tenten, crouching beside her.

"What's going on? What the hell is she doing? She can't beat him, he's too powerful," she said, coming up beside Tenten.

"I wouldn't be so sure. She has that bloodline. Why are you here?"

"She's the replacement for Shikamaru on our team and all the gennin were called to a meeting... what did you say? Bloodline?" Ino looked out to where Metsuki stood facing Neji, noticing her bandana was off. She gasped when she saw her eyes, pink and blue, and her grinning face.

"You use mainly taijutsu, right? Hyuuga taijutsu, the jyuken. Unfortunately, I use ninjutsu. Let's get this over with," said Metsuki, still grinning. She shifted slightly and Neji moved also, shifting just in time as a bolt of lightning hit less than an inch from his left foot.

But before he could move again, the earth around him shot up in spikes of rock and clay, sending grass and dirt flying eyerywhere. "Kaiten!" came Neji's muffled voice just in time, shattering the spikes of earth as he began the spin. Metsuki ran to the left, grabbing a handful of kunai off the ground that had been from when he and Tenten were training.

Just as the Kaiten stopped, she sent the kunai at him, almost catching him off guard, but he noticed them with his Byakuugan just in time, knocking them out of the air easily. Just then, Asuma and Chouji arrived, appearing beside Ino and Tenten.

Asuma, seeing the battle, was about to step in, but Metsuki called out to him.

"Please wait, Asuma-sensei. The battle is almost over"

But Asuma did not listen and kept coming forward from her left. As he reached the edge of the training field, flames suddenly burst to life a few feet in front of him, quickly spreading around the entire clearing, but not actually burning anything as they hung a few inches off the ground.

"This will only take a moment."

The branches of the surrounding trees suddenly shot out, towards Neji as he jumped, making the mistake of landing on top of them. Just as he was going to attack, the smaller branches wrapped around his ankles freezing him on the spot.

The branches moved up his body, and although he did not cry out as Metsuki had hoped, the pain was written across his face. There was a few cracks and his body slumped over. She had broken his wrists and ankles, causing him great pain.

The branches retreated, gently placing his body on the ground before resuming their original shape and positions. The clouds vanished as did the remaining spikes of earth, and as Metsuki replaced her bandana, the fires disappeared. She replaced her bandana.

Asuma ran forward towards Neji's body along with Tenten.

"Don't worry, he's fine, just unconcious," said Metsuki, making to step forward, but stopping.

"I think you went too far, Metsuki. He doesn't look so good," said Ino, stepping past Metsuki, but Metsuki didn't hear her.

She slumped to the ground, clutching at her head. She began coughing violently and Ino stopped, turning around to face her. _Damnit, too much. But it isn't a serious attack, at least I don't think it is..._

But she couldn't stop the coughing, it just kept coming along with bursts of pain throughout her chest and head. She couldn't hold it in. Blood dripped from her mouth and she squeezed her eyes shut under the cloth, trying not to look at it. Seeing others blood was fine, but seeing her own made her feel horrible.

She felt Ino at her side, with a hand on her back. _I'm not gonna show weakness here, not to these people. Get UP!_

Wiping the blood with the back of her hand, she forced herself up, sucking the air away from her lungs for a few seconds to stop the coughing. She was gasping for air as she shook her head, causing black strands of hair to fall into her face. She brushed them away, taking one more deep breath before her body resumed its normal functions.

Asuma had lifted Neji off the ground, still unconcious. "You four, Chouji, Tenten, Ino and Metsuki, get to the meeting, I'll meet you there."

He vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving the four gennin alone. The silence was broken by Ino.

"Uhh... I take you to the meeting, I guess you guys don't know where it is."

Before they could leave, however, two green blurry forms appeared before them. Metsuki looked up at them, noticing the same bowl hair-cuts and bushy eyebrows.

"There you are, Tenten! Me and Gai-sensei looked all over for you! Are you already on your way to the meeting?"

Tenten cringed for a second before nodding.

"Where's Neji?" asked the taller one, Gai.

"Probably in the hospital, he lost a battle," replied Ino, walking past him followed by the other three.

"He what? Lost? Neji? Who beat him?" asked Lee, looking from Chouji to Tenten and then to Ino. He didn't notice Metsuki who was in the back, behind Chouji.

"Metsuki beat him in about three minutes or less. She made it look easy," said Ino, smiling towards Metsuki who grinned back.

"Who?"

"Metsuki. She's the new gennin on our team."

"Oh... well let's get to the meeting. See you there!" said Lee, disappearing along with his sensei.

"Those two are kinda scary," whispered Metsuki to Ino as they dashed back to the village.

"Well... I suppose you get used to it after awhile, they are both very strong and fast," said Ino. "I wonder what the meeting is for, Asuma-sensei never told us..."

Metsuki felt something tug on her left shoulder, and when she looked she noticed Shikon hanging there. Ino looked over and almost fell.

"Eep! What's that!?"

Two more heads turned and looked over. "Her name is Shikon, she my fruit bat. A flying fox. Don't worry, she's not gonna eat you."

Ino continued forward after a moment, at a slightly further distance, not completely convinced. They were almost there.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The four gennin entered the room as around twenty heads spun around to look at the new arrivals. They were late, even Lee and Gai were already here. But the meeting had not started yet, apperently.

Ino went off to sit by some other girls, chouji went off by himself and Tenten went to go sit with Lee and he sensei. Metsuki went to the edge of the room by herself and sat down._ I hope I didn't have too much fun with that Hyuuga boy._

But they weren't the last people to arrive. One more team of gennin, with a white-haired sensei, arrived. The team consisted of a pink-haired girl, a blonde boy in an orange outfit, and a black-haired boy who was being bothered by both of them at the same time.

The onlt seats left were beside Metsuki, so she moved down to the last one, making room for the team to sit down. The dark-haired boy sat next to her, and the pink-haired girl, still bothering him, sat next to him. The blonde boy, who according to Shikons information, Metsuki guessed to be Naruto, sat down beside the annoying girl.

"You are... annoying, Sakura," said the dark haired boy quietly.

"But Sasuke-" Sakura.

"Hey, hey and then we can-" Naruto.

"Shut up Naruto! Me and Sasuke are talking-" Sakura.

"You're both annoying." Sasuke.

"Yeah Naruto-" Sakura.

"Kakashi-sensei, don't you agree with me that-" Naruto.

"He doesn't care Naruto! Just-" Sakura.

_This is getting annoying._ Metsuki rubbed her temples. But before she could tell all of them to shut up, she was hit with another attack. Covering her mouth and hunching forward, she coughed hard for about a minute, resulting in looks from the team beside her.

"Are you okay?" asked Sasuke.

Metsuki couldn't answer, as she was still coughing. When it stopped she took away her hand, which was covered in blood.

"Ugh... Shit..." she stood and ran to the door holding her head still. Once outside, she went to one of the washrooms down the hall, washing off the blood with her eyes squeezed shut. She took off her bandana and wiped her eyes with a wet paper towel, before moving to the rest of her face, cleaning up the blood.

Tying her bandana back on, she grabbed one more paper towel to take with her before heading back to the meeting room. Holding it over her mouth to soak up the blood, she entered the room and everybody turned to look at her again. Her sensei was here now also, making that everyone.

"Why are you late, Metsuki?" asked Asuma, breaking the silence.

She coughed a few more times, wiping a bit more blood away and clearing her throat. "I'm sorry, Asuma-sensei. I had another attack," she said, moving back to her seat and covering her mouth as she sat down. She knew her sensei knew nothing of her attacks, but she didn't feel like making up a long explaination.

She felt a steady flow of blood leaking from her body, and the paper towel was slowly growing heavier. It was a bad attack that she had only momentarily managed to put off. The boy beside her, Sasuke, was looking at her strangely, but turned back to the front of the room as one of the jounin began speaking.

"We apologize for the delay. There were some last minute changes made to the list, and some re-arranging.

"Due to lack of shinobi, we will be promoting most of you to a chuunin level. For the last month, we have been closely watching you and deciding which gennin deserve the new title. The ones remaining at the gennin level will be assigned to a new sensei. The list of chuunin is as follows

"Hyuuga Neji who is currently absent due to injury, Uchiha Sasuke, Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino, Hyuuga Hinata and the last minute addition of Metsuki."

Metsuki looked up in shock._ They place so much trust in me even though I've only been here for two weeks. They must be really desperate... Ouch. Damnit... _She coughed a few more times, pressing the paper towel to her mouth as a new flow of blood slowly dripped from her lips.

There was a loud groan from Naruto, only elevated to an angry yell when he saw Sasuke grinning at him.

"The new gennin teams are as follows: Under the Sensei Hatake Kakashi on the new team seven will be Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, and Akimichi Chouji. Under the Sensei Maito Gai on the new team eight will be Rock Lee, Tenten, and Yamanaka Ino.

"The meeting is dismissed, will the sensei please take their gennin. The chuunin are free to leave, you will receive your jackets tomorrow. And will Uchiha Sasuke and Metsuki please report to me."

Metsuki groaned inwardly, turning over the paper towel and pressing the dry side to her lips before standing shakily and stumbling towards the front of the room. _Damnit, why me?_

"You two, you know, bloodlines are useful tools for shinobi. Along with Hyuuga Neji, you, Uchiha Sasuke and Metsuki, have been chosen to make up a special team. You have been chosen because of your skill and your blood-" Sasuke glanced at Metsuki, who had just collapsed into a nearby chair. "Are you alright, Metsuki?" asked the jounin, stopping in mid-speech.

Metsuki struggled for a moment, her paper towel was completely drenched with red. It seemed as if no one noticed her struggling until now, but she hadn't minded. The pain was burning her head, stinging her eyes and her lungs as well.

"I-I'm fine," she whispered. "Just finish quickly..."

The jounin turned back and went on explaining. "Although you have just become chuunin, you now qualify for making the Anbu. In order to do this, you need to, as a team, complete a mission to be accepted into the Anbu. You are all very promising cantidates, and were chosen to try for the title. You will receive your mission as soon as Hyuuga Neji recovers from his battle with you, Metsuki. Dismissed."

Metsuki stood shakily before taking the paper towel away from her mouth. "Get over here, Shikon!" Her bat dropped from the ceiling and landed on her shoulder. She glanced at Sasuke and waved goodbye, before replacing the paper towel and running to the bathroom.

She quickly threw away the soaked paper towel, her stomach feeling even worse at the sight of blood, and grabbed a fresh one, covering her mouth and running out. She barrelled down the hallway, almost knocking over Sasuke, and dashed outside where she stopped and whispered to Shikon. "Go find Zenji and Itachi and get them to meet me in the northern forest. Hurry."

As Shikon flew off, Metsuki quickly dashed towards the forests, making sure she wasn't followed, and crouched in the middle of the northern forest, breathing heavily. The bleeding had slowed, but she knew it would not stop unless she got medical attention.

There was a rush of air, followed by a snap of wings as Shikon landed on a nearby branch. A second later there were two puffs of smoke as two Akatsuki appeared before her, bowing before standing. One was Uchiha Itachi and the other was the medical specialist, Zenji. Zenji had dark brown hair and a fully developed Hyuuga bloodline, although he had not come from Konoha. He was also a member of the main family, and therefore had no troublesome curse seal to worry about. On his forehead was a snowflake headband with a deep gash running through it.

"Metsuki-sama, you've had another attack?" asked Zenji, moving forward.

"Hmm..." replied Metsuki, standing and stumbling forward. She tripped and fell, but Itachi caught her with lightning fast movements, laying her on her back and removing the paper towel from over her mouth. "Close your eyes, Metsuki-sama."

Metsuki did as she was told as Itachi removed the bandana. Zenji whispered something to him and she felt her black vest come off as well. She felt Zenji's hands lift up her necklace, which she kept hidden in her vest, and examine it closely before dropping it back onto her chest. Metsuki was annoyed with not being able to see anything, so she forced her chakra to the back of her eyes, looking through her eyelids and seeing the blue outlines of the two Akatsuki.

"Copy me," said Zenji simply. Itachi nodded and activated his sharingan. Zenji began bringing chakra to his hands, passing them over Metsuki's body along with Itachi's in the exact same movements. Her body went numb and cold. "Okay," said Zenji.

The Hyuuga lifted her left arm and pushed up the sleeve, revealing an odd mark, a seal, that had been burned into her at birth. The marks had bled messily into eachother, but as the Akatsuki passed a chakra laden hand over it, tracing the burn marks with two fingers, they began to change.

The seal burned black as the lines reformed themselves in a design that wrapped itself around her forearm in a pattern of storm clouds. Her father had made everything according to her. The Akatsuki robes had been designed like her seal which in turn had been designed to portray the ability of her bloodline.

She felt the feeling return to her body, along with the warmth as Zenji finished his work. The sun was going down by now, turning the summer leaves a blood red colour. Itachi replaced her bandana and her vest and moved away, bowing once before disappearing.

"Be more careful, Metsuki-sama," said Zenji as he, too, disappeared. Metsuki sighed and rubbed her arm. _That was painful, _she thought.


	4. Mission Time

"Hey,umm.... Sasuke?" asked Metsuki. Sasuke was training at the edge of one of the training fields.

"What?" he said, turning his head slightly before facing away again. "What do you want, Metsuki?"

"Ummm... this is kinda emberassing, since i've already been there once before, but... do you know where the hospital is?" Metsuki rubbed the back of her head as Sasuke stopped training and turned towards her.

"The hospital? Fine, it's lunchtime anyways. Follow me," he said, grabbing his backpack and walking off.

Metsuki ran after him and fell into step beside him, walking in silence as they entered the city. Over the last three weeks since being promoted to chuunins, she had decided that Sasuke wasn't such a bad person as long as you wern't being annoying. He didn't seem to mind her either, since when they trained together she never said much.

"It's right over there," he said suddenly, pointing down a street to the left. Metsuki nodded, tightening her bandana and brushing hair away from her face.

"Thanks," sha said, before slipping away towards the large white building.

She pushed pat the two double doors and walked up to the main desk. "Hey, can you tell me which room Hyuuga Neji is staying in?" she asked the receptionist. The woman nodded, quickly flicking through a file.

"Room 218. Up the stairs and to your right, at the end of the hallway."

Metsuki walked off thinking, _why is there always stairs... It's a sunday and I'm lazy. They should put in an elevator or something._ When she reached the second floor of the hospital, she followed the woman's instructions, finally reaching a door that read 'Room 218: Temporary Care.'

She knocked and waited until she heard a muffled 'come in' from Neji. She stepped into the room, not bothering to sit in one of the chairs, but stood instead just inside the room by the door.

"Uhh... When are you getting outta this place? It's been three weeks already," she said. Neji was sitting upright in his bed with both his wrists bandaged.

"I'll be getting out in three days."

_Man, this takes too long_. "Okay then... Yeah... Sorry about breaking all those bones, but Asuma-sensei would have stepped in if I hadnt' made it quick. But don't worry, I paid for it later. I was coughing up blood for hours."

"Why? I never even landed a single hit on you, so you should have been fine."

"Well... My bloodline is extremely dangerous and can easily kill, but I have to pay for it. I'm not quite sure what it does to my body, but if I use it too much it causes alot of pain and I often lose alot of blood."

There was a moment of silence before she changed the subject. "I know. I'll make it up to you on the mission. It'll be easy, I promise!" Metsuki smiled and gave the peace sign before leaving, closing the door lightly behind her.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Metsuki sat in a clearing along with Sasuke and Neji, finishing off the morning of training. Today was the mission.

"So, who's gonna be the leader?" she asked uneasily. The two boys eyed eachother, not saying anything. Metsuki sighed. "You're not gonna compete for leader, are you? Just let the Hokage decide then."

"We should get going," said Neji, standing and turning away. His wrists and ankles were still bandaged, but with the attention of the medical ninja, he had recovered in only three weeks. Metsuki stood and lifted Shikon from her shoulder.

"Tell father not to follow on the mission," she whispered to the flying fox. She swung the bat into the air where it took flight, circling once before heading east. She ran to catch up to the two boys. _Geez, this is gonna be a fun mission, I'm stuck with two guys who won't ever speak a word. Plus they have no sense of fun. Joy._

After five minutes of silence, the three chuunin entered the room where the meeting had been held three weeks before. The hokage sat at a desk to the side with three neatly folded piles of clothing on the desk in front of her. They approached the desk as the Godaime sat up.

"First of all, who is leading the mission?" _Great_, thought Metsuki.

"I am," replied Neji, before Sasuke could get in a word of argument. The Hokage handed him a small, neatly labelled scroll and gave him a moment to read it over. When he finished, she handed him a map and he nodded.

"You will be treated as Anbu from now on, unless you fail the mission. Here are your uniforms, they have been fitted already. In the room behind me you can pick up a mask, and then you are to change and head out. Leave your clothes in the provided lockers. Dismissed."

Metsuki took her outfit, examining it closely. She wandered into the room that the Hokage had indicated and found the walls covered in masks. Under each mask was a label that told you about it. She walked slowly around the walls, looking for one in particular, which she found on the far wall. The label underneath it red 'Bat' and it was the only one of its kind.

"Let's go, Metsuki," called Neji. They had already picked their masks. She quickly took it off the wall and ran after them. Looking at their masks, she could tell what they had picked. Neji had chosen a bird mask and Sasuke had chosen a lion mask.

In front of them was a single changing room, which Neji entered first. When he came out, he looked completely different in the sleeveless Anbu uniform.

"There are lockers where you can leave your clothing. I'll meet you on the roof and we'll go over the mission."

Sasuke stepped in after Neji had vanished, coming out a moment later in the Anbu uniform. He said nothing to Metsuki, but vanished as Neji had. She stepped into the small room.

She quickly put on the outfit, adjusting it slightly and folding her clothes. She removed her headband, which she had received four weeks ago, from her arm where she had kept it tied Shikamaru style and placed it on top of her clothes. There were nine lockers, in three rows of three, and she took the one in between Neji's and Sasuke's, closing the door and taking the little tab after locking it. She attatched the tab to the inside of her sleeve before looking over herself in the mirror.

The uniform made her look even skinnier, and the seal on her left arm was clearly visible. Her hair hung down to her shoulders, neatly curving under her chin. The small necklace around her neck was also now visible, the small blue-grey jewel glinting slightly in the low light. She hung her mask around her neck, resting on her back, before heading out to go look for the two other team members.

As promised, she found them on the rooftop sitting in silence, waiting. She joined them and Neji began going over the mission.

"The mssion is an A rank mission, nothing too difficult. We are to first head to the Leaf's ally, the Hidden Stream, and pick up the fourth member of our team. This is a mission involving both Hidden Villages, and both will share in the profits. The other ninja coming with us is a medical-nin who also has a bloodline allowing for abnormal healing qualities. Also, his eyes can see into your body to pick up any internal abnormalities. His name is Iyasu and he is a thirteen-year-old chuunin and recent Anbu member.

"The second part of the mission requires our new four-man team to head to the Hidden Snow, a long journey that will take up to two to three weeks or so. Once we arrive, we are to locate and aquire at least two of their four forbidden jutsu scrolls. One will go to the Hidden Stream along with Iyasu and the other will be sent back to Konoha. If more or all scrolls are aquired, then each person receives one, making it possible for Konoha to gain three and the Iyasu of the Hidden Stream a maximum of one.

"We are to go about this as quietly as possible, taking the least amount of lives possible and not allowing any of our group members to be injured. We also do not want the Hidden Snow to find out which villages are involved. That's all, got it?'

Neji unrolled the map that the Hokage had given him. On it was a map of all of the countrys and known Hidden Villages. In the top, left hand corner there was a map of the Hidden Snow giving directions to all possible areas where the scrolls could be hidden. Neji rolled it back up and tucked it into a scroll holster.

"It's a day's journey to the Hidden Stream. When travelling, Sasuke will lead the way, followed by Metsuki and I'll bring up the rear. Are you ready?"

"Wait," said Metsuki, standing. The two boys cast annoyed glances towards her, but she didn't care. Bringing two fingers to her pursed lips, she whistled a quiet note, so high that the other Anbu couldn't hear it. She waited for a moment before she got a return squeak from the south, and she turned to see Shikon flapping erratically towards her.

"Shikon, quit foolin' around! Get your ass up there and go on ahead," she yelled at the bat. Shikon squeaked and circled once overhead before heading northeast.

"Okay," she said. Sasuke jumped forward, bringing up his lion mask and also heading northeast. Metsuki followed and Neji brought up the back. Their mission had finally begun.


	5. Ookami Iyasu

Metsuki sat up, looking towards the horizon as a small sliver of pale light penetrated the black sky. She had volunteered for the last watch, and it was almost time to wake up the other two. Shikon landed nearby and squeaked lightly as Metsuki dug in a bag of provisions, bringing forth a small fruit, an orange, and handinding it to the bat who sunk her teeth into it.

"Go eat it away from here, you'll get it all over everything," she said, not bothering to whisper. The fruit bat drooped from her perch, opening her wings and taking off with the orange fruit. Metsuki sighed. It was time to get going.

She jumped down from the tree where she had been posted and walked silently over to Sasuke, nudging him with her toe, before doing the same to Neji. The two shinobi were instantly alert, but relaxed as they saw Metsuki sitting a few feet off. As she waited for them to get ready, she brought up her legs and buried her face sleepily into her folded arms. Her bandana was loose, but she was too tired to care.

After a few minutes, the two shinobi sat down to eat, digging in the bag of provisions and looking for a small breakfast.

"Aren't you going to eat any Metsuki?" asked Sasuke, pulling out two oranges.

"I'm not that hungry," she replied, her voice muffled in her clothes. Shikon flew overhead before flippeing down and landing on the ground. She took another orange and began eating it.

"What did I tell you about eating here, fatass? You're too messy, go over there," said Metsuki, lifting her head and pointing to the edge of the forest. The large bat took off, doing as she was told. Metsuki dropped her head back into her arms. Five minutes later, the other two Anbu finished their breakfast and packed up, replacing their masks and grabbing their weapons.

Metsuki had fallen asleep, and as Neji went over to wake her, he noticed the odd shaped burn mark on her arm, the seal.

"What's that?" he asked Sasuke. Sasuke walked over, removing his mask and staring down at the seal.

"It's a seal..." said Sasuke. He nudged Metsuki, who groaned and lifted her head.

"We're going now, so get up. If you were this tired you should have just asked me to take double shifts," said Neji, turning away and replacing his mask.

Metsuki absent-mindedly rubbed her arm, not noticing the looks she got from the two other masked Anbu, before she fell into line with them and headed out. It was only a half hour to the Hidden Stream.

Eventually, the three Anbu came across the Hidden Stream, a small village in the middle of a large, grassy field scattered with large boulders. But before they could go any further, Metsuki stopped them, pointing up at one of the large boulders.

An Anbu stood at the top of it, arms crossed and short, dark brown hair blowing messily into his face. He wore a mask depicting a wolf, painted black and red. He removed the mask, revealing a young face and well defined, handsome features, along with a pair of odd eyes. They were completely black, no white, and glinted in the morning light. Silence.

Metsuki decided to speak up, since she knew the other two would not. " Are you Iyasu? Ookami Iyasu?"

The figure slid off of the rock, landing in a crouch at the base of the rock before standing, still holding onto his mask. "Hai." he said. "And you are Hyuuga Neji, Uchiha Sasuke and Metsuki, ne?"

The three Anbu nodded. Neji stepped forward, shaking hands with the Stream-nin and whispering something to him. Iyasu nodded and stepped forward. He held up his left hand and twitched his fingers, a bag of provisions dropping off of the top of the boulder and into his hand. He replaced his mask.

_Great, another one who is the strong but silent type. Geez, two was okay, but this is overdoing it._ They fell into position, Iyasu behind her, but Metsuki stopped them.

"Neji, you said it was a three week journey to the Hidden Snow, right?'

Neji sighed and turned, "Yes, Metsuki.'

"How about I make it around five or six days?"

There was silence. "How?" asked Neji, turning fully.

"I'll take that as a yes, ne?" she grinned. "Stand back."

The three other ninja did as they were told, moving aside until she told them to stop. She took a deep breath, she didn't like to see her own blood, but she didn't feel like walking.

Biting her thumb, she touched it to each of her other fingers before slamming it into the ground and yelling, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

There was a puff of smoke, and as it cleared, a giant bat stood on all fours, wings folded tightly to its sides, with Metsuki standing on it's head. It's beady black eyes glinted as Metsuki stepped forward, grabbing reins that passed through it's fanged, wolf-like muzzle.

"Come on, get up here," she pulled the reins slightly, and one of the wings unfurled allowing the three, somewhat startled ninja, to board their fanged vessel. The soft black fur rustled gently in the breeze as the shinobi wearily climbed up, sitting down akwardly.

"I never knew you could summon," said Sasuke.

"There are alot of things you don't know about me. We will have to walk the last day though, as a large bat coming towards a village would scare the shit out of them. And on top of that, using chakra takes alot out of me anyways. I'll be wasted after this... Hold on!" _But according to the info I got on Iyasu, he should be able to stop the bleeding. And the attack won't come until I stop using my chakra anyways._

Metsuki jerked the reins, and the large, black bat pulled into the air and circled a few times, gaining altitude before heading north. _Let's speed this up, _she thought, removing her bandana. She knew she would pay later, but she loved flying fast. She tied it around her arm and stirred up a strong wind, throwing the other shinobi backwards as she stood on the head of the giant bat, keeping the tension on the reins.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was the last day of flying, and to Metsuki it had lost it's fun. She had already made the other three sick in a series of loops and twists yesterday, and had accidentally dropped Sasuke, but she managed to catch him just in time. The landscape had changed from plains to forests and then to snow covered forests as they travelled farther and farther north. It was almost sunset, and the temperature had dropped dramatically.

During the times when they were at rest, Metsuki had had to leave her bandana off, otherwise she knew an attack would hit. Using her bloodline for so long would have serious consequences, and tonight she would have to face them. She was shaking, althoughit was not from the cold; she knew there would be lots of blood and she wondered if Iyasu could manage it. She decided to warn him.

"Hey, um... Iyasu?"

"What?"

"I'm gonna land soon and de-activate my bloodline, so I thought I should ask you now. You're a medical specialist, right?"

"Yeah," he said, sitting up from where he had been lying all day.

"Well, when I use my bloodline at all, even for a few minutes, I pay for it as soon as I de-activate it. I pay for it in blood though, I get an attack of some sort. I just wanted to warn you, because when I land I'll get an extremely serious attack."

"Attacks? What happens?" he asked, looking towards her as she stood facing away.

"Well... I'm not sure exactly what happens, but I start coughing up blood and it really hurts. It burns my whole body and if it goes unattended, I'd probably die from either stress or bloodloss. Sometimes, when I get a really bad attack, my eyes and nose start bleeding as well... but..."

"What is it?"

"Well... One of the only things I really get nervous seeing is my own blood. I don't mind others blood, but my blood makes me sick, which just adds to it. Do you think you can stop the attack?"

"Yeah, it should be easy enough," he replied after a slight pause.

_You just don't get it do you? Oh well._ "I'm gonna land now..."

The large bat circled once, twice, three times as she hesitated, but eventually she brought it down in a large field at the edge of a forest. Once on the ground, the four ninja jumped down and the black bat landing in crouches beside eachother.

Metsuki prepared for the attack, sinking to her knees as Iyasu came up beside her. She de-activated her eyes by tying the bandana over them and waited in silence, counting the seconds. It didn't take long.

Her lungs suddenly contracted as pain erupted through her body, her shoulders shaking in a coughing fit as she struggled to breathe beetween coughes. She grabbed her head and squeezed her eyes shut as she felt the horrible liquid burning up her throat and her nose.

It took almost two minutes for the coughing to stop, but then came the worst part. The small trickle of blood running from her mouth and nose suddenly increased by a tenfold, running freely off her chin and nose and soaking into the snow.

This is when Iyasu decided on what to do, he forciblbly grabbed her shoulders and slipped off the top part of her Anbu uniform, leaving her in only the black undershirt. The snow all around was covered in red, and Sasuke and Neji looked on in horror, eventually coming forward and kneeling down beside Metsuki. She had stopped shivering, and was lying perfectly still with the blood leaking from her mouth and nose. Iyasu turned her head to the side gently.

"Close your eyes, Metsuki," he said gently. But her eyes were already closed, she had closed them as soon as she felt them burn. They were bleeding, although you couldn't see it on the black cloth. Iyasu untied her bandana, revealing the rest of her face, her delicate features covered in blood and her eyelids quivering.

"Oh shit," muttered Iyasu. His eyes moved across her body, seeing under her skin. What he saw frightened him.

"What is it? What's wrong with her body?" asked Neji, leaning forward.

"Activate your Byakuugan and look for youself," replied Iyasu.

Neji cried out in suprise as he saw the war her body was fighting from the inside.

"What is it? I can't see," said Sasuke.

"Her TenKetsu is constricting around her vital organs, her heart, liver, kidneys, stomach, and especially her lungs and brain. But that's not all, her TenKetsu is not normal. There are three hundred sixty-one Tsubus, or chakra openings in the body, but it looks like she has an abnormal amount, almost twice the amount of a normal person," Iyasu ran his hands over her body, hovering then a centimeter above her skin.

"Look,' said Neji, indicating the seal. It seemed to have melted, the burn marks seeping into one another.

Iyasu quickly lifted the bottom of her shirt up, revealing her stomach. There were several scars running across it, looking like torture marks, but he ignored them for a moment, pressing a chakra covered hand into her stomach and closing his eyes in concentration. He ran his own chakra through her TenKetsu, trying to relax the inner coils, but only succeeding slightly. The bleeding grew steadier.

"Damnit, I can't do this alone. I need another Medical-nin to-"

"Sasuke."

Metsuki coughed up more blood before continuing.

"Sh-sharingan." This cost her another coughing fit. Her stomach muscles convulsed, bringing her into a sitting position for a second before she fell back into the snow, unconcious.

Sasuke looked over to Iyasu. Neji caught the meaning before the other two.

"Sasuke, use your sharingan to copy Iyasu's movements," instructed Neji, straining his Byakuugan to view Metsuki's inner coil system better.

Sasuke activated his bloodline, copying Iyasu as he pressed his hands into her stomach again, gently forcing his own chakra through her body, slowly relaxing it. It took a few minutes, but the bleeding eventually stopped. Iyasu dug in his bag for a jacket and a cloth, wiping off Metsuki's blood covered face which was unnaturally pale. He then wrapped her in the black jacket, replacing her bloodied bandana and gently lifting her.

"We should set up camp, she needs to rest. I'll need to work on replenishing her blood and chakra for most of the night, but she should be fine in around a day," Iyasu said as he carried her into the tree shelter. Neji picked up Iyasu's and Metsuki's bags, along with his own, before following along with Sasuke behind him. The sun had gone down almost completely, but the moon shone brightly off the snow.

Neji cleared away a spot to sleep, as did Sasuke and Iyasu cleared a larger space for Metsuki. Their camp was fairly sheltered and hidden from view.

"I need to start on fixing Metsuki up, so I'll take first watch. I'll wake one of you up before midnight, so you can get some rest. We won't be doing much tomorrow," said Iyasu. He set down Metsuki gently on the ground, sitting up beside her and draping the jacket over her body, leaving her stomach still exposed and placing his hand on it, running chakra through her body.

Sasuke grabbed his own cloak from his bag, taking off the top part of his Anbu uniform and using it as a pillow as her put on the cloak instead. Neji did the same, both falling asleep almost instantly

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Get up, Neji." Iyasu was still sitting up beside Metsuki, hand glowing with chakra as he continued treating her. Neji sat up, bringing up his cloak around his shoulders.

"It's your watch. I'm going to bed."

"How can you sleep if your supposed to be treating Metsuki?" asked Neji, glancing warily at him.

"I've done it before, my body is used to it," said Iyasu. He lay down beside Metsuki, hand still resting on her stomach in an almost intimate posture. Neji glared angrily at him.

"What the hell are you doing, Iyasu!?" he said angrily.

"Going to sleep, goodnight," he muttered, falling asleep almost instantly. Neji felt uncomfortable in seeing the two ninja so close, he could see the condensation from Iyasu's breathing brushing against her neck. He quickly turned away, suddenly realizing how hot his cheeks were, the cool air felt refreshing. He refused to look at Metsuki and Iyasu until his shift was over.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The small fire crackled softly in the cold air, providing little wamth. A hare was slowly cooking above it, sending an almost irresistable smell into the air. Iyasu sat asleep against a nearby tree as Neji and Sasuke absent-mindedly watched the meat cook, turning it every once and awhile.

There was a cough and Metsuki stirred slightly, groaning and rolling over. There was a moments silence before she pushed herself up using her elbows. "Holy shit, what a horrible sleep..."

"You're finally up?" asked Sasuke.

"Hn." she replied holding one hand to her head as she pushed herself fully up.

"Why do you do that to your body? You'll kill yourself." said Neji, turning the rabbit once more before removing it from the fire.

"Don't really care. Nobody would care if I died anyways."

Iyasu stirred as well, rubbing his black eyes and yawning once. "How're you feeling, Metsuki?"

"Horrible."

"Thats good." he said, yawning again.

"Here," said Neji, holding out a strip of rabbit meat, "you need the protein and energy, we're heading out to the Hidden Snow as soon as you recover."

She took it hungrily, wolfing it down in a few seconds before moving on to the rest of the meat. When she was finished, she wiped her mouth and tightened her bandana. " We can leave in a few minutes, I feel much better. Thanks for stopping it, Iyasu."

"No problem." Iyasu smiled at her before glancing at Neji, black eyes glinting in the early morning light. Neji glared back at him. He didn't like this shinobi.


	6. Genjutsu Memories

The Hidden Snow lay at the bottom of a glacier in an icy valley. It lay in the shape of a hexagon, with large, thirty feet walls surrounding it, covered in slippery ice. The houses were arranged in the pattern of a snowflake, and in the center where all the branches met, stood a hexagona building with a small side portion, most likely a ninja acadamy. It had taken the group of Anbu the entire day to reach it, and the sun was now almost completely gone.

'We'll head in in a few minutes, alright?" asked Neji, crouching behind a large boulder and adressing the rest of the group. His brown cloak flapped gently in the breeze.

"Metsuki, please don't use your bloodline during the mission. You've already lost too much blood," said Iyasu. Metsuki shot an angry look at him.

"I'll do whatever the hell I want! D'you think I give a damn if I die?... I'm gonna take a look around," she said, standing angrily and and vanishing.

"Ugh... She's scary when she gets angry," said Iyasu, peeking over the edge of the rock at the village. A snowstorm had kicked up, obscuring it from sight. It swirled angrily around it, engulfing it completely. Iysau sank back down, sighing.

"You should go get her, Neji, otherwise our timing will be off," said Sasuke.

Neji grunted and stood, vanishing. He cast around for Metsuki, finally finding her sitting on a nearby boulder, her feet dangling off the edge as she stared out towards the village.

"Metsuki, we should leave. You should listen to Iyasu, he has a point," said Neji, standing a few feet off. To his suprise, she said nothing, but continued staring out.

Neji paused, before deciding to pry a bit. "When Iyasu was trying to stop that attack, he ran his chakra through your stomach. What were all of those scars? They looked like torture marks. And what is that seal on your arm?"

Metsuki was silent. "You're right, we should go." _Damnit, I hope father doesn't find out. He'd kill them all... again._

Metsuki vanished, leaving Neji to wonder about what had happened. In a few moments, though, he had also headed back to the others as they prepared to head out. Metsuki adjusted her brown Anbu cloak, draping the hood over her head.

It was an easy dash to the village, but the snowstorm surrounding it had grown fiercer and they paused at the edge.

"Let me just-" Metsuki was cut off by Neji.

"No," he hissed, " I don't want to lose you..." _What's he talking about?_ Metsuki stared at him.

"I'm the leader of this mission and it's my responsibility to see that everyone gets back safely," said Neji as he realized what he had just said.

"I'll use the Byakuugan and lead us through. I'll take the front, followed by Sasuke and then by Metsuki. Iyasu will bring up the rear. Make sure to hold on to the person in front of you."

The group prepared, attatching their masks and grabbing a hold of the person in front of them, forming a line. It would have been easier if they had brought a rope, but their bags were still hidden back at their campsite.

Neji activated his bloodline, before pressing into the almost solid wall of snow. It swirled wildly around them, stealing their breath away and whipping across their necks and hands. The hood of Metsuki's cloak almost blew off as she pushed forward with a great deal of difficulty. Being the lightest in the group, the wind almost picked her right off the ground.

The snow around her was so thick that she could barely see the glowing blue form of Sasuke ahead of her. Her hands were frozen and her legs were beginning to stiffen. She felt a whoosh of warm air to her left, and she turned her head forcefully in the direction, catching a glimpse of a black figure. Ann odd tingling crept up her back, and she finally pinpointed it. This was no normal snowstorm, it was genjutsu.

_Why didn't Sasuke recognize it?_ Turning her head back to the slow trail she was ploughing through over knee-deep snow, she suddenly froze. In front of her stood Sasuke, she could clearly see for some reason through the snow, but he was dying. Blood was dripping freely from over a hundred kunai embedded in his body. This is just genjutsu, she thought. They had stopped moving and she heard a thud. Iyasu fell behind her, warm hands dropping away from her cloak.

_Just a jutsu_, she thought wildly, trying to escape it. _Damnit, what's going on? _Suddenly the snow stopped, wind dying down and revealing the bodies of her companions all dead in the deep snow. Six shapes suddenly surrounded her, all glowing blue in her mind. Snow-nin.

_What the hell is this? Screw this, I'm usin' my bloodline._ She moved her frozen hands to her face and lifted the cloth, tying it around her neck. She saw Sasuke and Neji in puddles of red in front of her. But before she could break through the genjutsu, the six ninja simultaniously struck her, each throwing many kunai towards her. The world turned dark as the jutsu escalated a level.

Pain exploded throughout her body as each kunai struck her and knocked her down. A twisted voice, a female's, rasped out from the shadows as blood red eyes widened in anticipation.

"She fears... blood. And her comrades lives. Painful. Past..."

A Psychic? But before she had time to sort out what was happening, a new scene unfolded before her. She saw Iyasu and Neji, both alive, being tortured by two of the Snow-nin. They screamed out as sickly twisted instruments entered their body. When Metsuki tried to move, she found her body frozen to the spot. Glancing down she saw her body covered in blood which was flowing freely from various gashes in her body. _Just a genjutsu, just a genjutsu..._

"You're wrong," came the girl's voice. "This is no jutsu, it is real. Aren't you going to save your friends? Not like last time, you let them all die." The female voice came through her mind with no actual physical traits. And for some reason, Metsuki believed her. This was too vivid to be genjutsu, but... _Where is Sasuke?_

Iyasu slumped to the ground, either dead or unconcious. His body couldn't take the pain. Neji cried out as a katana was run across his stomach, before plunging into his side.

"Neji! Ugh..." her body felt slow and her arms and legs felt like lead. She closed her eyes, making a big mistake after she found they would not open. "Shall we see what went on in your past?"

Pictures began flaring to life in front of her in silence as they played out her history, the only noise she heard was Neji's screams. She tried to cry out for someone to help her out of this, anyone, but the picturs kept coming.

She was only a child, only three years old, her father was teaching her how to use her bloodline. Her attacks were not bad back then, only a small headache or a few second's coughing. The picture melted into another.

She was now four and had killed her first person. The blood was on her hands as her father congratulated her. She wiped the blood across the person she had killed, further staining the clothes. It was her mother, the last bearer of her bloodline along with her.

Now she was five and on a battle field, sending up spikes of earth and ice as she sent bolts of lightning into a small village. Her father had wanted to test her, and had just told her that her only purpose was as a tool for his organization, the Akatsuki. She had felt nothing at the time, although she fully understood his words.

The scene changed again, it was her seventh birthday and she wanted to play with other children her age. Her father had agreed to send her to a village, the Hidden Star, and she had made her first friends. They were all acadamy students, and her closest friends were a girl with a shock of blue hair that she kept in pigtails, she was always smiling. The other was a boy, always silent, he had black hair and had had his family slaughtered at the age of two, he liked the blue-haired girl but would never admit it. The last was an adventurous boy with flaming red hair and a personality to match. She had liked him the best, and spent alot of time with him.

She was still at the Hidden Star, but was now nine, and her and her friends were gennin. They had become known throughout the village as powereful ninja, each had their own summon as well. They had been a formidable team. She watched as the four of them trained in a small field.

The scene changed again, showing her at the age of eleven and sitting in the moonlight beside the red haired boy. He had just told her that he had feelings for her, and she had begun to tell him about herself. He had changed throughout the years, growing more mature and even more powerful. This scene ended with a pair of dark eyes watching her as she leaned forward into the red-haired boy's arms.

She was still eleven, but the Hidden Moon had changed. It was a wreck, with dead bodies everywhere and the ground covered in blood. Her two friends, the blue-haired girl and the dark boy, were huddled against a building, both of their summons defeated. Her father gave the word and killed the boy as he defended the girl, before slaughtering her as well. Then, right before her eyes, her own father killed her boyfriend, splattering his blood into the night. But the jounins of the Star finally captured her.

The pictures changed to scenes where she could almost feel the pain. They were torturing her, spilling her blood everywhere. They taunted her about letting the red-haired boy die so easily, and about betraying them. But her father finally found her and killed them.

The scene changed, the aftermath of the attack on the village, everyone was dead. That was when her attacks had started growing worse, more serious.

She was now twelve, and fighting her way past a new member of the Akatsuki to regain her position as second strongest. He was a sharingan user, but it was useless against her. It took alot of time, but she finally beat him down. The picture melted into one showing the attack she had had after that, her blood spilling everywhere. The person who she had just defeated actually helped her then.

It then showed her at thirteen, fighting Neji in the field, snapping his ankles and wrists so easily. She heard his screams continuing from outside of her realm of memories as she tried to fight it off. But it was not over.

Now she was fourteen and Neji was her new boyfriend. The attacks had lessened. But her father decided to interfere again.

_This has not happened... is... is this the future?_

Suddenly a picture of Neji, bleeding on the ground, was before her. Except this time it was her hands that were covered in his blood, and her father was clapping behind her. In the image, she felt the corners of her mouth twitch as she smiled.

Finally the torture ended, only to be replaced by a vision of Neji. He had stopped screaming and now lay beside Iyasu.

"You see, monster? That is what- Who's there!? Get out!" the sick voice suddenly escalated to a screech. Metsuki stood frozen, wide-eyed and staring at Neji with her mouth slightly open. She did not notice the dark world around her suddenly fade.

"Metsuki! Get up, now!" It was Sasuke.

All around her lay the bodies of the six Snow-nin, along with Neji's and Iyasu's. She snapped out of her trance and looked towards Sasuke, who was covered in blood with kunai and shuriken protruding from his brown cloak. She wanted to move, but her body wouldn't allow it. Her body was frozen.

Sasuke gave up, collapsing into the deep snow, breathing heavily. But Iyasu suddenly twitched. The various wounds all across his body started welding together, stopping the bloodloss. It took only a minute before he stood, fully healed. He ran over to Neji, quickly reviving him and sealing his wounds. The snow started to pick up again, but this time it was real snow, not a jutsu.

Neji said something to Iyasu, before sitting up. Iyasu moved onto Sasuke as the snow picked up further, obscuring Metsuki's view. Her eyelids felt heavy. She almost fell asleep, but a voices cut through the snow.

"Metsuki! Where are you?"

She heard the faint sound of someone yelling 'Byakuugan' and a moment later she heard three sets of hurried footsteps crunching through the snow towards her. She felt Iyasu's hands quickly pull the weapons from her body before sealing the cuts. She no longer felt tired, and finally snapped out of her trance.

"Wh-what... Was that a Genjutsu? What happened?"

"Yeah, Genjutsu. But Sasuke wasn't affected by it. He defeated all six of them by himself," said Iyasu, helping her up. The snow died down again.

"So much for going unnoticed," muttered Sasuke. Ahead of them the walls of the Hidden Snow rose thirty feet into the air, but there were no ninja standing atop it.

"You must have killed the messenger, they must have been the guards. We can still pull this off, but only if we get moving now," said Neji, dashing to the side and followed by the other three. Now the mission would really begin.


	7. Summons and Hospitals

There was a small problem. The thirty-foot ice-covered wall proved to be more difficult to scale than they had hoped, and they now crouched behind a snowdrift, trying to come up with either a way to climb the wall, or an alternative way in.

Metsuki sat and let her mind wander from the mission, back to what she had seen in the genjutsu. She absent-mindedly rubbed her seal. Neji stood, ready to try again.

Metsuki stood along with the others, moving to the front. It was her turn to lead them up, and she was not going to fail miserably like the rest of them. Looking up at the alternating kunai, she grinned and rubbed the warmth back into her frozen hands. Two of the fingers on her right hand had been broken, and they burned and throbbed, but she ignored it. _At least they aren't bleeding_, she thought.

She removed her cloak, attaching it to the other's as they had done before to make an improvised rope. She tied it around her thin waist and began to climb.

The metal handles of the kunai slowly froze her hands again, even managing to stop her throbbing fingers. She climbed slowly, making sure her footing was good before reaching up for the next kunai. Her arms were freezing as she climbed past the last few kunai. There was only ten feet to go, but the kunai ended. Now was the hard part.

Holding on as tightly as she could, she grabbed a kunai from her pouch and slammed it as hard as she could into the ice wall. She repeated this over and over, until there was only a foot left to the top, one more kunai. But suddenly below her, Sasuke slipped, jarring Neji who was in front of him. They both fell into Iyasu who was at the end of the makeshift rope as Metsuki braced herself for the violent jerk that came moments later when the rope went taught.

The combined weight of the three ninja hanging below her was crushing her ribs, she could almost hear them groan with the strain. Her left hand fell away, and soon she was hanging by her right hand alone. Her two broken fingers twisted sickly as their joints dislocated and she almost cried out, instead biting her tongue hard.

She looked below her at the three shinobi dangling there, it didn't help thet the wall curved further up the higher you went. That was the exact moment her wrist decided to snap, the tension being to great for it, and the four began to fall. _Not this time._

A large spike of ice suddenly shot out from the wall, narrowly missing Sasuke's stomach. Neji caught onto it as Metsuki landed hard on top of her right arm, further damaging the wrist. She quickly forced the spike into a small platform big enough for them to rest on for a while. The wall was now only six feet up, but Metsuki didn't think she would be able to hold on if they fell again.

"Ow... You guys gotta lose some weight. Look what you did to my poor hand. I am right handed, you know, and that makes me useless," she held up her hand limply and let it dangle before her, poking the numb appendage and letting it fall back into place. It crackled sickly.

"Here," said Iyasu. He gently took her hand,wrapping both of his larger hands around it. The warmth, either from his chakra or just from his body, felt good as Metsuki felt her bones knitting back together. He finished off with two dull cracks as her fingers relocated themselves.

"Thanks, Iyasu," she said. Sighing, she looked up at the wall. If she stood, she wouldn't be able to reach it, although the others would, they were taller than her. Neji stood silently and easily grabbed the edge, lifting himself up. He was followed by Sasuke and then by Iyasu. Metsuki was last.

She reached up with her healed right hand as Neji grabbed it, the warmth seeping into her again. _Why is everybody else so warm, but here I am freezin' my ass off?_ She dug her feet into the wall as the ice platform below her vanished, finally pulling herself up onto the wall and looking upon the Hidden Snow properly.

The buildings arched towards the middle in an almost artistic formation as snow fell over it, turning it completely white and reigning silence across the rooftops. It was beautiful. Metsuki was shaking uncontrollably by now, as the sun had already set and the moon glinted sharply off the snow, drilling into her mind.

Still in silence, the four untied their cloaks, shaking them back into their original shape and putting them on. Metsuki shivvered even more, wondering if she should have just left the cloak off as it was covered in a thin layer of ice. She brushed against Sasuke, once again noticing that his body was radiating heat, unlike hers.

The four fell back into the shadows against the side of a building as they caught their breath properly.

"Why am i so cold? You guys are all warm, but I'm freezin' my ass off!" she hissed. Iyasu turned, and grinned.

"You've lost too much blood from the previous attack, and from that ambush. It would also help if you weren't so skinny," he said, still grinning. Neji removed his cloak and held it out to her, white eyes boring into hers.

"Here, I'm not cold," he said. She took it gratefully as an image flashed into her mind. She had been sitting with the red-haired boy in the middle of winter as they trained. It had started snowing, and the temperature had dropped. Although she could stop the snow, she had no control over the temperature. The red-haired boy had givin her his jacket to wear as they trained. It was almost exactly the same, except instead of pupiless white eyes staring out at her, they had been emerald green. She smiled.

"Once we arrive at the main building, I want Metsuki to enter alone, as she is the quietest of us all. Sasuke and Iyasu will watch over her. I will stand guard outside and use my Byakuugan to keep watch. Metsuki, you will locate the scrolls as quickly as possible and deliver them back to us one at a time. They might be in different places, so we could be moving around alot. Alright?"

"Hai," said the three other shinobi. They stood, back in the same formation with Neji leading followed by Sasuke, then Metsuki and then by Iyasu. They danced lightly across the rooftops, making sure to land in Neji's footsteps, which were infrequent to begin with, and leaving a trail in which it appeared there was only one ninja stealing through the night.

There were no lights on in any of the houses that they passed, save one or two, and the building at the center of the village came up quickly. The four quickly dashed around to the right side of the structure, where they would begin searchin the eight points which they had determined the most likely for the Snow-nin to conceal the scrolls. Metsuki dropped into the first courtyard as the figures of Iyasu and Sasuke vanished into the shadows, leaving her alone.

She approached the first location, a small, underground shrine, and descended the icy steps. She heard voices speaking in whispers to eachother from behind the door, two adult voices, male, most likely jounin guards. She sighed inwardly, peeking through a crack into the dimly lit room and spotting exactly what she had predicted. The Snow Jounin wore the same type of flak jacked as ones from the Leaf, but they were completely white. They also wore completely white outfits, perhaps for camouflage. _If I kill them, the alram might be raised if the bodies are found. I should do this quickly and silently, and I should hide the bodies_.

Metsuki furrowed her eyebrows as the air surrounding the two ninja vanished, leaving them with nothing, not even the ability to cry out or perform a jutsu. She curled the air below their bodies as they fell, making no sound at all, before waiting a moment to make sure there were no others. She stepped forward.

As she approached the centerpeice of the shrine, she noticed something else that Neji had told her to watch for. It was not the small lever sticking out from the side of a statue, but the small, hair-like threads passing around it almost invisible against the stone. She carefully manipulated her hand past them and flicked the lever down.

The centerpeice silently moved, it's lower half opening into a crawl space which she entered. She almost gasped when she saw what lay hidden inside.

Although there was only about a little more than two feet of crawlspace from floor to ceiling, the far wall was stacked with scrolls, each brightly coloured and intricately decorated. From each scroll, upon closer examination, hung a tag that said what it contained. Although this was not part of their mission, it had been exactly what Metsuki had been looking for, but even she had not expected there to be this many, maybe two or three tops. They were summon scrolls.

She crawled towards the stack, holding out her hand and reading each of the labels, she was going to take three, one for each of the other members on her team.

She found the perfect one for Iyasu first, the scroll for the wolf summon Katsugan, a large white wolf with incredible strength and speed. The outside of the scroll depicted the ninetails, the demon fox, being beaten down by the wolf. She unrolled it and found a bit of information on the summon, although the part meant to be signed was blank.

_The God of Wolves, Katsugan (meaning peircing eyes), is a pwerful demon with incredible powers of speed and strength. It is said that he would have most likely beaten the demon fox, Kyuubi, in a fight, although it would have been close. Although the summon is only the sixe of a large wolf, he has incredible strength and unwavering loyalty._

She rolled up the scroll, tucking it inside of her cloak, realizing she was still wearing Neji's. She moved down the line. The next one she found was perfect for Sasuke, it was not a single summon, but a group of summons. They were the three dragonflies, two brothers of air and water and the father of them, a large red dragonfly of the fire element. The outside of the scroll was painted with red and orange swirls and one and was blue and the other was yellow. This scroll was also blank, and the information at the top was as short as the last.

_Akatonbo, the giant red dragonfly, and his two powerful sons, Shiden of the air, as fast as lightning, and Anrui of the water, with powerful jutsus. Akatonbo is a giant, red dragonfly of the fire element and although he is rebellious, he keeps his word and is fairly loyal. He will protect his master with everything, making him a powerful ally._

After tucking away that scroll as well, she rummaged through the pile quickly, looking for one type in particular, a type of bird summon. She thought it suited him, and he seemed to like birds as he had chosen the bird Anbu mask.

She finally found one, painted white and designed in black feathers. The Eagle Brothers, Kazaashi and Shuurei. She scanned the blank scroll, before coming across an even smaller information paragraph.

_The giant Eagle Brothers, with wingspans of up to thirty-five feet or more. The white Kazaashi for speed and intelligence, and the black Shuurei for grace and power, along with instinct, making a powerful team if summoned together._

She smiled, quickly rolling up the scroll and stepping out. But as she prepared to step back out, she noticed a small, black string in the corner. She moved over to it and gently pulled it, causing the frozen dirt to crumble away and revealing a medium-large scroll in the ground. She pulled this out and examined it. On the edge ir read, Forbidden Jutsu Scroll number Three. She gripped it tightly before leaving, heading past the two bodies and above ground.

She quickly headed to the rooftops, locating Sasuke first and handing him the scroll, he nodded and whispered, "Neji says to try points B, C and E next, he says that he can see scrolls inside of those rooms, all three."

Metsuki nodded in silence and headed to point B, the next point and the closest to her current position. There was another shrine, another crawlspace, another string and another scroll here as well, along with a wall of stacked gold blocks. She only had one guard to kill this time, and when she finished, she gave the scroll to Sasuke, tossing him a peice of gold and grinning before vanishing, off to the next two points.

These were the same, except for one contained historical documents in the crawlspace and the othe contained three rusted samurai armour laying in boxes against the wall. This was getting too easy, she almost laughed.

"That's it? That's an A ranked mission?" asked Metsuki. "Hey, Where's Mr. Leader?"

"He's keeping watch on the roof over-" Sasuke was cut off as Neji ran towards them, panting and bleeding from several small wounds.

"They've found us! There are too many, we'll have to run!"

There was no questioning him as over fifty white ninja, mostly jounins, jumped towards them weilding feircome-looking weapons. The four chuunin took off in a hurry, back the way they had come. The way was blocked, they were suroounded.

Metsuki stepped forward and threw up her arms, taking with them a somewhat large amount of snow. The snow melted together into long, pointed spears of ice which she sent at the jounin in front of them, the ones blocking the path. It was cleared and stained with blood in a matter of seconds, ripping around twenty bodies to shreds instantly, and the group took off.

She shot a look behind her, sending up spikes of ice from the ground and stopping their pursuers in mid-dash, perhaps even killing a few more. The group made it to the edge of the wall, before stopping, it was a over a fifty foot drop here. The jounins started appearing behind them again.

"Trust me, just jump! I'll take care of it!" The three others braced themselves and did as told, hurtling down in a sickening freefall before landing on a large, black fur covered surface. It was a giant bat.

"Wait there, Akumu!" came Metsuki's voice from above. There was a sudden explosion as the entire wall exploded into a blazing tornado of flame, which was put out only after a thousand small ice needles followed up the attack. But it wasn't over, as another astronomical explosion shook the air. The bat rested on the ground as if nothing were happening, looking pissed off that it had been summoned in this frozen wastleand.

Metsuki flew off the wall with the last explosion, her cloak billowing in the firey night as she clutched Neji's in her left hand. She fell headfirst towards the bat, causing the ninja below to think her unconcious, until her arms came out like a professional diver and she flipped upright landing in a crouch on the bat's head. Her body was badly singed and her skin had black marks on it, although her hair seemed untouched.

"Fly, now, Akumu! Hurry!" She grabbed the reins of the giant black bat as they rose into the air.

"Make sure that they don't get a clear shot on my summon, otherwise our ticket out of here is dead," she said as she expertly controlled the bat.

Sasuke ran up to the edge of the bat's back and yelled, "Katon Ryuuku no Jutsu!" A gigantic stream of fire, as large as the explosions caused by Metsuki, flew from Sasuke's mouth, taking quite a few of the closer Jounins down. The bat was clear.

"Fly high, Akumu."

The bat lifted it's huge wings above it's finely furred head and beat down hard, throwing them another twenty feet into the air, and continuing until the Hidden Snow was completely lost in the clouds. The bat's soaring resumed at a laid-back pace. Iyasu moved over to Neji to tend to his wounds, healing them in a matter of seconds. Neji was about to say something to Metsuki, but he was cut off.

"We are heading straight to the Hidden Stream right away, that should only take a few hours, so we should be there by sunrise."

"Sunrise? But it took us almost a week to get here. And what about our camp?" asked Neji.

"If we land now, we will be caught, so it's too risky to get our stuff. And I could easily get us there by sunrise, I'll just need to push my body a little."

"Metsuki! Don't do that, you've lost enough blood, you'll kill yourself," warned Iyasu, standing up.

"Shut the hell up and hold on tight, Iyasu. It's gonna be a hell of a flight to the Hidden Stream."

Metsuki whispered something to the large black bat, Akumu, and slumped over, still concious, but no longer in control. She had put hersulf into the summon's body and was now controlling th bat.

She felt her senses sharpen incredibly as the world painted itself in black and white in her mind. Every sound flared to life as an image in the back of her mind as she manipulated her echolocation. She flexed her long wings before straining her body to it's limit, pushing past the pain and forcing her new body to move as fast as it would allow. The world zoomed past her unbelievebly fast as she pushed herself alog with a strong wind, and as the sun began to rise, she looked upon vast grassy fields. In the distance she saw the Hidden Stream, nestled in the center of a valley and surrounded by large dark boulders that cat elongated shadows in the morning light.

She detatched herself from her summons body, jerking back to life in her own. She had a horrible headache, which was unnatural since her bloodline was still active. That was a bad sign for the side effects to be showing up already.

She steered the bat lower and lower in tight circles above the village, landing close to one of the walls and standing. Iyasu stood as well, receiving a scroll from Sasuke in silence. He shook hands with Sasuke and Neji before moving towards Metsuki.

"Here, I got one for you. It's a summoning contract, you need a summon, they're useful. I got you the Wolf God, Katsugan. Take it," she said, loud enough for the others to hear in awe of such a great gift. Then, to their suprise, Iyasu thanked her by brushing his lips across her cheek, as she had abandoned he mask awhile ago. Neji felt his cheeks burn.

"Bye," said Iyasu. He vanished in a puff of smoke and Metsuki turned to the other two, noticing Neji blushing but not saying anything. She also noticed both of their stunned faces. She laughed quietly.

"Don't worry, I got you guys one as well. For Sasuke, I got the three dragonflies, Akatonbo of fire, and his sons, Anrui of the water and Shiden of the air

"And for Neji, which took me a long time to find, I got the Eagle Brothers Kazaashi and Shuurei, very large and powerful birds."

She tossed them their respective scrolls and they caught them in awe. They thanked her, still not beleiving what they had received.

"We'll be back at Konoha in less than an hour. I feel a bad attack coming."

She jerked the reins of her bat summon and lifted off, passing over the fields and then the forests until Konoha was in sight. Neji noticed by now that she had broken out in a cold sweat and was breathing heavily.

"What's happening, I thought you only got attacks after you stopped using your bloodline. What's wrong?" he asked worriedly.

"I've never had an attack this bad, Neji," she said seriously. "I really don't know what will happen to me. If something does happen, please replace my bandana, otherwise my body will count that as still using my bloodline." _HOLY SHIT! WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING TO ME!? I CAN"T BREATHE!_

The bat swung over Konoha, over the Hokage's quarter, vanishing as it dropped them over the roof. The three ninja landed expetly in crouches in a neat row with Neji in the middle. Suddenly, Metsuki began coughing.

"Neji," she rasped as blood began to leak from her mouth. "Take me to the Hokage."

She began to cough uncontrollably as the attack hit her, or more exploded from her body. Blood gushed from her nose and mouth, even causing red tears to leak from her eyes. Her left ear began to tricle slowly as she collapsed. Neji and Sasuke were ther in seconds, Neji cradling her body until she stopped coughing.

He lifted her gently and carried her quickly off the roof, jumping from the edge and absorbing the shock as best he could with his knees. Sasuke ran in front of him, pushing the doors open. When they got in, they found two ninja standing at the door of the Hokage's office. Sasuke pushed past them and began to bang on the door, the Anbu mask hanging over his shoulders bouncing up and down on his cloak with every strike.

Just then, Metsuki coughed up another torrent of blood, covering Neji's front ans staining the wooden floor. The two ninja at the door called out to the Godaime that it was an emergency and the door opened, revealing Tsunade with sleepy eyes. They snapped open though, when she saw that the three chuunin had returned so early, she had expected them to take almost a month to complete the mission.

But her eyes really opened wide as she saw Metsuki dripping blood which was leaking from every opening on her head now, staining her face and Anbu cloak red. Neji was now completely covered in her blood. Tsunade stood in shock for a moment, registering the state of the kunoichi. Her lips were turning blue, her eyelids were twitching in pain, her heartbeat was weak and irregular, as was her breathing, and... her breathing stopped?

Tsunade dashed forward without words, sweeping the female ninja away from Neji and laying her on the floor, trying to bring back her breathing. She ripped off the cloak, revealing her arms and neck. They were covered in black marks, clouds, her seal had spread and now was reaching up her body. She barked instructions to the four ninja, telling them to get the medical-nins before she jolted Metsuki's body, shoking her respiritory system back to work. A moment later, more than a dozen medical-nin filled the room, swarming around the chuunin as Tsunade barked orders at them, commanding Neji and the two jounin to leave. Sasuke, however, remained as Tsunade said he was needed.

Neji left slowly, wondering if Metsuki would live through this. He stepped into the summer morning, or now autumn seeing as how they had been gone for almost two weeks. Looking up, he was shocked to see what had happened to the sun. Instead of it's usual happy glow, it burned blood red, seeming to drip in the colour of blood.


	8. 5 Days

Sasuke finally emerged from the building, his hands covered in blood. It had taken almost three hours to stop the bleeding, and Metsuki was now being transported to the hospital, where they would continue to treat her. Something strange had happened though, when the Godaime had called in a seals specialist to control Metsuki's seal, which had began to spread even further. Once re-sealed, her body first went into shock before almost exploding. Perhaps it had been sealed wrong, but every one of her previous injuries from the mission had resurfaced, broken boned, internal bleeding and a new torrent of blood. Bt now, the Hokage had wondered how much blood one thirteen-year-old girl could possibly posess.

But that had not been all, after stopping the bleeding again, the Hokage tried to knit the bones back together, but they would not heal. Her TenKetsu was throbbing as well, and just as her and Sasuke managed to calm it down, Metsuki's temperature shot up in seconds to over one-hundred. At the moment, nobody even knew if she would survive the night. Sasuke sighed and headed off to tell Neji, he had noticed how concerned he had been with Metsuki during the mission, and thought he would want to know what was going on.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Neji had acted cold and uncaring, as usual, when Sasuke brought him the news of Metsuki's condition, but now he stood at the hospital desk for the fifth time in the last two days. They were allowing no visitors whatsoever into her room though, and she was in the middle of her second operation anyways. Her condition had become marginally worse, but thanks to blood transfusions and the hard work of many experienced medical-nin, she was slowly strengthening.

That's when she, due to the stress on her body, went into a coma. Sasuke had been called in for the use of his Sharingan again and had brought Neji the news, and he had taken it fairly well. That was, until Sasuke told him the other half. He had said that if her condition progressed for more than two months, which there was a seventy-five percent chance of happening, she would become a human vegetable. Vegetable meaning that she would not be able to move at all, not her mouth or her body, and would have no control over her body's functions. It would be fine it she stayed in a coma for up to three years or more, but if her condition persisted, she would turn into a lump of useless flesh and bone.

At this, Neji was visibly shocked. His shock quickly turned to anger, and when he found no one to blame it on, he went off to train along with Sasuke. Today they were going to practice their summoning after signing their contracts. It took a long time, and wasted alot of chakra. Their first day got them nowhere at all.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In about a week, Neji and Sasuke had almost learned how to summon properly. Metsuki's condition had not gotten any better at all, worse if anything, and he was still unable to get into her room. They had been called to the Hokage's quarters for a mission with a high pay, sold out as bodyguards for the president of a big-name company as he passed through the countries towards the Hidden Moon. Many people were unhappy with him and assasins were repeatedly sent to try to kill him. They were on this mission with two other Anbu, Izumo and Kotetsu, led by Izumo, who was also the medic. Before leaving, Neji and Sasuke received their tatoos and a small code on their cards that stated they were now officially Anbu members.

The time passed slowly on the mission, only four assasins showing up, and the president made it safely to his destination. The four Anbu camped out there for a week as the man attended to his business. On the way back, there were another four assasins, nothing too difficult to deal with, and he made it safely back.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

neji stepped through the hospital doors again, the fourth time since he returned from the mission. He followed his usual path up to the desk, and stood silently, waiting for the nurse to finish filing something.

She turned around and noticed him, recognizing him instantly because of the number of times she had seen him. She sighed as she sat in her office chair, turning to face him.

"Metsuki? Again? You should know the answer by now, Neji," she said, staring into his pupiless eyes. He sighed and turned to leave, but was stopped by the nurse.

"Why do you want to see her so badly? Are you her boyfriend?"

Neji paused, "...No." he said, turning to leave again. The nurse smiled.

"I suppose..."

Neji turned around again to face her. "I suppose I could let you see her for a moment, but only for a few minutes, she is still in critical condition. And she has another operation coming up soon."

Neji felt the corners of his mouth twitch as he forced back a smile. "Thanks."

The nurse stood and led Neji into the depths of the hospital, first passing through a door that said 'Long Term Residents' which her grimaced at, before passing through another pair of doors that read 'Restricted: Critical Care Patients.'

As the double doors swung closed behind him, Neji was greeted by a small hall teeming with medical-nin and doctors. Which was odd, he noticed, since there were only eight rooms and only four of them appeared occupied. The nurse he was following led him to the second door on the left, muttering something to one of the doctors before opening the door and letting Neji in, closing it softly behind him.

Neji felt sick at the sight of the room. There was hardly any room to stand, as the sides of the bed were almost completely surrounded by machines. There were four packages of liquid hanging from metal two metal poles, one on either side of the bed. Three of them contained blood, while the last contained water. Neji took a deep breath, wondering if he really wanted to look past the machines, before moving towards the bed.

Metsuki lay with the top half of her body outside of the thin sheets and her arms resting beside her. The front half of the bed was covered by a translucent plastic box, which elevated the wires and tubes that ran into her chest and neck. She wore no clothing, but her whole body was covered in bandages which stratched across her chest and arms, reaching up her neck. The top of her head was also bandaged and her hair had recently been trimmed shorter, now only reaching a few inches past her ears. She still wore her black bandana.

But that was not all. Over her mouth, which was slightly open, was a large breathing mask, fueled by duel pumps which clicked and hissed alternately as they moved up and down. A large tube, the size of his pinky finger, ran past the bandages and into her side, most likely feeding into her stomach. Her chest was barely moving, almost invisible to the normal eye, although Neji did not have normal eyes.

The bandages on her left side were red with blood, and he noticed the fingers of both her hands were all broken, and her right wrist was also broken. Small wires criss-crossed over the bed, a few dropping down and attatching onto her body. A tube even ran directly into her neck.

Neji would not believe what he saw, so instead he turned to the two clipboards attatched to the end of her bed. He scanned it with his mouth slightly open as his eyes grew wider. The injuries were listed from least severe to most severe or potentially fatal. There were things like which fingers were broken, broken wrist, broken ribs, dislocated shoulder, snapped achilles tendon, fractured femur, growing even worse as her neared the last group of things listed. The group read internal bleeding: left lung, left kidney, and liver. Looking to the next list and still not beleiving, he read it slowly.

It was a list of her condition and her operations, both passed and upcoming, along with the results. Her next operation was a spinal tap; Neji flinched just reading it. She had already had her heart operated on, that was the first operation, after that her leg had been operated on, then they attempted to stop her kidney from bleeding, but ended up instead finding another problem and removing part of her stomach.

Neji looked back to where Metsuki lay, glancing at the many machines crowding around her thin form. One read '101.91 degrees F.' another displayed her heart rate, which was very faint, and yet another read 'Blood Pressure: 198.8' which was flashing between 200.6 and 198.5, rising and falling irregularly. Neji did not know what all of the terms written on the paper, or what the numbers on the machines meant, but he knew they were not good. Suddenly, one of the machines began beeping quickly.

The door to the room burst open a moment later as three medical-nin pushed Neji out the door, crowding around Metsuki's bed. Neji turned with his mouth still slightly open, he did not believe the last thing he had read on the second list. ' "If the condition does not begin improving within five days, the patient in question will have a remaining lifespan of five days maximum." Probability of Improvement: 28.86 - day one, 22.55 - day two, 14.90 - day three, 9.12 - day four, 0 - 3.67 - day five, 0 - day six.'

As much as he hated it, Neji knew what he wanted to do. He was going to head to the Hidden Stream, as they had the one person who might be able to help her, the one person who's skills would challenge even the Hokage's. He was going to get Ookami Iyasu.


	9. Iyasu Again

Neji ran out into the morning light at the edge of Konoha. The fastest way to get to the Hidden Stream, without his absence being noticed, was to fly. He could make it in less than half a day, and easily make it back by sunset. But doing that required him to summon one of the two eagle brothers, which required alot of chakra.

He bit his thumb and ran his other fingers across it, concentrating hard on properly releasing his chakra as his hand plunged earthwards. There was a puff of smoke and he found himself atop the head of the Eagle Brother Kazaashi, pure white and albino and known for his speed and intelligence. This would work out well.

Neji silently grabbed two strong ropes that acted as reins for controlling the albino eagle. Giving a slight jerk, he lifted off the ground. He had nly done this once before, and with the other brother, and still did not quite understand how to control it.

"Where to, Neji?" rasped the summon suddenly, noticing his difficulty. Neji gave up and sat back.

"The Hidden Stream, as fast as you can move, Kazaashi," he said. The eagle circled once, getting his bearings, before heading northeast towards the Stream. The wind bouyed him up from underneath, lifting them high into the air and ruffling the oddly white feathers. The eagle's eyes, both pink, scanned below him before he really took off, darting with incredible speed for such a large animal.

Neji held on tight as he watched the trees pass quickly below him, eventually growing less concentrated before disappearing completely, even faster than he had thought they would. They were replaced with a familiar setting, wide grasslands scattered with large grey boulders that reached high into the air.

After only three hours of travelling, Neji saw the Hidden Stream approaching fast, nestled at the bottom of it's shallow valley with the small stream running through it. He grabbed control of the summon again, preparing to land, but was stopped by a voice from below, to his left.

"Is that you Neji? What are you doing here?"

Neji faltered in mid-flight before spinning around, taking the eagle with him and landing it on one of the larger rocks. It's talons dug deep into the stone as Neji jumped down beside it, resting a hand on it's leg and peeking out at none other that Iyasu.

He was sitting with his legs dangling over the edge of a boulder, a backpack resting beside him, on the exact same rock in the exact same pose as when they had first met. The only difference now was his clothes. He wore a loose, light blue chuunin vest that hung open to reveal a medium blue sleeveless shirt with light blue flames curling up from the bottom edge. He wore black short pants and the exposed parts of his legs were covered in bandages. His short, brown hair was once again blowing messily into his face under the Stream head protector which he wore bandana style. He stared out at Neji with black eyes and Neji noticed they were watering, he had been crying.

But Iyasu wiped his eyes quickly, standing up. "Why are you here? The mission has been over for awhile Neji, if you haven't noticed," he muttered sarcasticly, not smiling. He looked almost angry, Neji had apperently come at the wrong time.

Neji actually considered to just turn around and leave, he knew for a man to cry it had to be something particularly painful. But he remembered Metsuki on the verge of death with all of the machines beeping around her and decided to stay.

"Iyasu, I wanted to ask you a favour."

Iyasu stared silently back at him, waiting for the rest.

"Metsuki had a bad attack, and I wanted to know if you could help her out a bit." He phrased it as lightly as possible, but got no response from Iyasu, nothing but silence.

"I cannot use my bloodline as freely as you can, Neji. Let the Hokage deal with it, her skill is as good as mine, or better."

Neji felt anger boiling up inside of him again, he would not give up. "Let me rephrase that, Iyasu," he hissed. Iyasu turned back to him, his look of anger now gone and replaced by his normal expression.

"Metsuki is lying in a hospital bed in critical care for long term residents. She probably has over fifty medical ninja looking after her, and yet her condition is getting worse," Neji went on as he noticed Iyasu's face still bore no emotion.

"She is in a coma and had five days to start recovering, or else she'll die. She is internally bleeding, has a number of broken bones, and a high temperature and bloodpressure. Her breathing and heartbeat are both shallow and irregular and right now... she is probably getting that spinal tap. They've already preformed heart surgery on her and removed part of her stomach. And the Hokage doesn't have enough time to take care of her 24-7, if she would even live that long."

There was silence as Neji finished, and Iyasu's face was still the same as he stared off into space. He turned to fully face Neji.

"Why are you doing this for her? It's certainly not out of sympathy. Do you love her?"

Neji faltered, before composing himself. "No."

"Then why should I go? If she is not that important to you than why don't you just let her die?"

Neji fought against his anger, willing himself not to rip Iyasu to shreds. "Because it's not right for someone to suffer like this. You wouldn't know unless you saw what kind of condition she is in.... Please just do this one thing."

Iyasu laughed inwardly, he was going to toy with the Leaf-nin's mind one more time before going. "Only if you admit it."

Neji paused, knowing what was coming, but trying to avoid it. "Admit what?"

Iyasu snorted. "Admit it. Say that you love Metsuki. C'mon, I know you want to," he said, finally grinning.

Neji ground his teeth, he really wanted to hurt this man right now. But he knew it was the only way to get him to come, so he decided that just saying a few emotionless words would not be too hard to do. "I..."

He was wrong, the second word caught in his throat. He couldn't force it out. He felt his face burning, but continued. The sun was beginning to fall.

"I... I _love_ Metsuki. Now let's go," he said. His cheeks were burning bright red and he knew it. Iyasu hopped down from his boulder, grinning, and shouldered his backpack, heading over to Neji's summon and climbing up onto it's shoulders.

"Really? I never knew," he said sarcastically. Neji looked as if he were about to kill him, and his face was red either from embarassment or anger, Iyasu couldn't tell.

"First, let me tell the Mizukage that I'll be gone for awhile, just drop me in the middle of the village, it'll only take a minute."

Neji complied, silently fuming at the Stream-nin. He landed on the building at the center of the village, the one in which the stream passed directly underneath it. Iyasu jumped down and entered through a door on the roof while Neji waited impatiently above.

There was suddenly the sound of raised voices, yelling at eachother from below. A moment later, Iyasu appeared with a flushed face. He silently borded the albino eagle, and Neji took off without question. The sun would have set by the time they reached Konoha.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Neji landed the eagle in the forest, and dragged Iyasu along with him towards the hospital as it vanished in a puff of smoke. The sun has just set and a low glow was still visible on the horizen. As they dashed through the streets, Neji almost ran over Sasuke.

"There you are! I was looking for you earlier, Metsuki's condition just got worse. They finished a spinal tap and then her seal broke again, they had her hooked up to six blood transfusions at once while they tried to seal it. She lost more blood each time... Why is Iyasu here?"

" It got worse?" said Neji, avoiding Sasuke's question. He rushed past him in the direction of the hospital, followed by Iyasu. He pushed quickly through the double doors and rushed up to the front desk. The nurse was not there. The hospital seemed quiet except for a group of doctors speaking quietly in the corner.

"I don't have time for this," muttered Neji. He traced his footsteps towards the room where he had visited Metsuki before, finally coming across the restricted zone. He was not prepared for the sight that greeted him.

As he and Iyasu pushed past the double doors, they found the halls crowded with medical-nin. The floor outside of the operating room was covered in blood, which was smudged with footprints as it dribbled towards none other than Metsuki's room. The medical-nin were calling out orders to eachother as they rushed in and out of her room.

"I hope that's not her room, is it?" asked Iyasu. Neji pushed through the crowd and turned into her room, greeted by blinding white light and the shadows of many medical-nin. The two chuunin forced their way into the room and Iyasu got his first view of Metsuki.

Most of the wires that had been previously running through her body were laying bloody and discarded on the floor. There were, as Sasuke had said, six or more blood transfusions entering her arms. On top of that, the bed, floor and her own body were covered in blood which the medical-nin had apperently been trying to stop. Metsuki was still unconcious, and her breathing mask was splattered with blood.

"Holy shit! What the hell are you doing, you idiots! You'll kill her! Get the hell out of here!" yelled Iyasu, eyes wide.

"Iyasu-"

"You too Neji! And don't let anyone in until I come out, got it? Now go!" Neji quickly followed the other medical-nin out the door as he caught a last glimpse of Iyasu, almost dripping in blue-green chakra. Iyasu slammed the door as the hallway outside reigned dead silence.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nine figures stood atop a nearby building, one of them crouching low and looking towards the hospital with white eyes.

"The Stream-nin they brought on the mission is taking care of her now, we shouldn't interfere, Metsuki-sama would get angry again," said Zenji, standing and rejoining the other Akatsuki.

Houtan shifted slightly. "I suppose we can leave it, he is a very talented ninja."

The nine shapes vanished in puffs of smoke, but from the shadows on a nearby rooftop stood a single figure wearing a jounin vest and had a toothpick bobbing up and down thoughtfully in his mouth. Genma had heard the whole conversation.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Iyasu sighed and stepped slowly out of the room. It had taken three full days, but he had finally managed to almost fully revive Metsuki. She now lay asleep in her hospital bed, her vital signs steady. He found Neji in the lobby, asleep in one of the uncomfortable chairs and poked him weakly, he didn't have much energy left.

Neji was instantly awake and he stood quickly, almost knocking over poor Iyasu.

"Are you done yet? Is she alright?... You don't look very healthy," he added as an afterthought. It was true. Iyasu had no colour whatsoever, he was completely white, and he was breathing shallowly, straining each breath. His hands were covered in blood, although he had somehow avoided getting any on his blue shirt. He shook his head.

"I'll be fine in a few days. Metsuki is asleep right now, but she should wake up in a day or two. I'm gonna go find a hotel to stay in..."

Neji watched as a blood covered Iyasu moved slowly away from him, looking as dejected as when he had found him. He sighed, as much as he hated the chuunin, he knew he had saved Metsuki and he owed him for that.

"Hey, Iyasu. You can stay at the Hyuuga house, we have a large guestroom with an extra bed that you can use. Just wait here for a moment, I'm going to go see Metsuki."

He saw Iyasu collapse into a chair and fall asleep without a word as he moved towards Metsuki's room. He pushed past the double doors, noticing the number of medical-nin had thinned, and made his way towards Metsuki's room.

She was asleep in her bed, the sheets had been changed, and most of the machines had been removed, the only ones remaining were the blood transfusions, only two now, and the heart moniter, which was beeping strongly and steadily. He sat down in the chair by her bed.

Most of her bandages had been removed, and she now wore a loose, white hospital shirt. Her chest rose and fell slowly and her face was much more relaxed. Neji reached forward and took up her left hand, wrapping his around it and noticing how cold it felt.

He leaned forward and pressed his lips onto her forehead, gently pushing her hair away from her face. He stood up and left the room, back to the lobby where Iyasu was still passed out in the chair. Neji gently shook his shoulder, jarring him from his sleep. Iyasu stood, eyes half closed, and followed him outside, towards the Hyuuga Estate.

Once there, Neji led him to his room silently, where he passed out again, falling across the bed messily. Neji returned to his own room, where he usually only went to sleep. Which was exactly what he was going to do, since he had spent the last few days sleeping in a lobby chair. As he slumped down on top of his covers, he squeezed his eyes shut, concealing his white orbs behind his eyelids as he slowly fell asleep.


	10. The Red Moon

Metsuki's mind drifted aimlessly through the darkness, projecting memories through her mind or just letting her simply drift through nothingness. Right now, though, she was recalling her life, feeling the numb pain of what she had felt before return to her.

She remembered her training as a child, her father would train her from sunrise to sunset, teaching her jutsus, developing her bloodline. When he taught her a new jutsu, he would force her to learn it, not letting her stop training until she mastered it. She was not allowed to eat or sleep during the time she trained. She recalled whenever she gave up, he would beat her into submission, forcing her to keep trying, to keep training.

Sometimes he would test her, bring in people for her to fight, or send her on difficult missions. If she failed he would step in at the last possible moment before she was slaughtered. Sometimes she would be tortured, and he would allow it to a certain extent. Although he let her experience extreme pain, he did not want to lose her as her bloodline was a powerful weapon. As a test, he had even ordered her to engage in one-on-one combat with her mother, the last person aside from her who posessed her bloodline.

After killing her own mother, her father had sealed her soul into the necklace which she always carried with her. It was a blessing and a curse, a double-edged sword. If she hurt those around her, it returned the pain a hundred fold, but if she lived for those people, it strengthened her. It also granted her another trait in which it was if her mother's body had merged with her own, increasing her amount of chakra but distorting her TenKetsu. This was how the necklace controlled her. The soul of her mother within it could control her half of the inner coil system, causing her great pain and suffering, and potential death if left unattended.

She remembered training for years and years, living off of scraps, and her father saying that he did not want to lose her. He was also very dedicated, every birthday he would give her a wonderful gift, and she was also the only one who got a say in his decisions. But as she grew older and more mature, she realized he only did this because he needed her to weild as a weapon.

Something had also happened in the last few years of her life. Her father had lessened the training sessions, leaving her mostly in the care of Shoku, as he sent out the members of the Akatsuki out in ones or twos. He thirsted for power, he naturally needed it to live, and he had been sending them out to find sorces from which he could leech from. Itachi was also highly prized to him, as his Sharingan was useful in gathering things such as jutsus.

She remembered how he would experiment for days on end, trying to find a way to extract advanced bloodlines. He had even experimented on her, his own daughter, trying to extract her powers. It had almost killed her, but he always stopped at the last possible second, it was how he lived.

In the last few months, her father had even called together the members of the Akatsuki, concentrating them to one spot. They had planned on analyzing another of the Hidden Villages, the Hidden Grass, as it had been reported by one of their members who resided near there that a certain bloodline ran strongly through one of the clans. It had been rumoured to be an offshoot of Metsuki's own bloodeline, and her father had viewed it as a threat and as a source of potential power.

The darkness swallowed her up with these last thoughts, but this time it was different, more sharp and clear. She heard noises which she hadn't picked out before, voices. No just one voice, speaking her name. _Neji?_

She opened her eyes slightly under the black cloth, noticing the red outlines of a few machines around her. Her arm had an I.V. imbedded in it and she turned her head to avoid looking at it. As she turned her head, she found herself staring at the blue form of a person, two people, sitting at the edge of her bed, one awake and the other slumped over. It was Neji and Iyasu. _Man, Iyasu looks wasted_, she thought, pushing herself up.

"Damn, Iyasu, what are you, stoned or something?" The form which had been staring off into space jerked back to reality, grinning back at her.

"Look who decided to cut short her beauty sleep. Feeling better, Metsuki?"

"I'm fine, dunno why I'm here though..." she coughed once.

Neji slowly lifted his head, rubbing his eyes before staring up at her. "You're awake!'

"No shit," she replied, feeling more awake now. "I never knew."

"What happened anyways? How long was I asleep?"

Iyasu handed her two clipboards and she scanned them, grimacing. "A spinal ta- Hey! What the fuck? What the hell did they do to me? Holy shit..."

She pulled back the covers and lifted up the edge of her shirt, peering down at her stomach where a long scar, larger than all the others and more recent, ran across it. "They removed part of my stomach...?"

She dropped her shirt, letting it fall back over her as she scanned the clipboard again. "Heart surgery!?" she said, sticking her face into her shirt before pulling out and rubbing her chest.

"Damn, why didn't you guys tell me? You should have woken me up so I could have at least fought back... Hey, I thought I dropped you off at your village before we headed back..."

"You did, but I had to come back 'cause you were dying."

Metsuki paused for a moment, clutching her stomach protectively. "Why are you so pale, Iyasu?"

There was silence for a moment.

"I had to put part of my soul into your body. It took a long time and it was painful, but it saved you."

"You what? How?" asked Neji, turning to face the Stream-nin.

"Long story," he muttered, rubbing his temples.

Iyasu stood, suddenly silent, and left the room without a word. His brown hair fell into his face, hiding his eyes in shadows.

Neji turned back to Metsuki as she raised a questioning eyebrow. He shrugged, before remembering what he had planned on asking her.

"Umm... Metsuki," he said, looking away for a moment.

"What?"

"I was wondering if, maybe if you get better soon... there's a festival coming up and..."

"Wow! A festival? With lots of food and lights and fun stuff like that? Can I go?"

Neji stopped, suprised by her sudden enthusiasm.

"I've never been to a festival before, can you take me?"

Neji almost smiled. "Sure."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Metsuki browsed through one of the many stores in Konoha, looking for a nice kimono to wear for the festival. Most of them had already been bought, leaving only the plain ones. But plain wasn't nessecarily ugly. In fact, the one she planned on getting was a completely black one made from light fabric and had a red strip to tie around the waist. On the back it had the kanji for moon in dark red writing.

She tried it on in one of the change rooms, looking herself over in the long mirror. It fir perfectlly, curving delicately around her body and stopping just before her feet, at her ankles. It was incredibly comfortable as well, and along with her dark hair, it suited her perfectly. On top of that, it was one of the few she could afford with the money received from the mission to the Hidden Snow.

She folded it neatly and brought it up to the counter, paying for it and leaving the crowded store, back to her small apartment. The fesival was tomorrow, and the whole town was buzzing with excitement.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Neji stood in the Hokage's office along with a number of other ninja, gennins, chuunins, jounins and otherwise. They had been called here an hour before the festival and awaited orders from the Godaime. Apperently, members of the missing-nin organization, the Akatsuki, had recently been spotted in Konoha.

"We also obtained information concerning Metsuki. She is somehow connected with the Akatsuki, whether she is with them or if they are after her we do not know, but I wanted to warn you of this beforehand. If you see any unusual behavior on her part, please do not hesitate to report it. If things get out of hand, do not hesitate to take action. Dismissed."

Neji walked off slowly, wondering how Metsuki of all people could be connected with an organization of missing-nin. Looking up at the low sun, he sped up. The festival was about to start.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Let's get some sushi! I'm so hungry," complained Metsuki, dragging Neji behind her. It was two hours into the festival, and Neji was exaughsted from darting all over the place. There was a full moon hanging above, surrounded by dimly shimmering stars.

Metsuki had already spent the remainder of her money, and now even Neji was running low. They came out of the sushi bar with two orders of sushi and sat down at one of the last empty tables. The streets around them were crowded, packed full of people. Strings of lights hung overhead, illuminating the whole town.

Metsuki finished her sushi quickly, before finishing Neji's as well, seeing as he had only eaten half. There were a series of explosions as another round of fireworks were launched into the air.

Metsuki looked up in awe as the red colours of the fireworks painted themselves sharply in her mind. She heard the people around her calling out in suprise as more fireworks were sent up. Suddenly, Neji grabbed her shoulder and forced her under the table.

"What?" she said, almost hitting her head on the bottom of the table. Looking around, she saw others also hiding, running away. Something had gone wrong.

"Those aren't fireworks, look," said Neji, pointing towards the streets. As people ran the opposite direction, balls of fire reigned towards the earth, creating small craters where they hit the ground.

The Leaf-nin who were participating in the festival however, remained behind, some drawing weapons or heading to the source of the odd fireballs. There was another explosion, this time closer, and a new batch of fire fell from the sky.

"We have to go help, something is happening..." Neji crawled back out from under the table followed by Metsuki. After casting around for a moment, he dashed off along with the other leaf-nin. Metsuki looked up at the sky, suddenly afraid. She knew what was happening, she had seen it before.

She followed the now steady flow of shinobi dashing towards the source and drawing a kunai from her small weapons pouch under her black and red kimono. It was coming from one of the town squares located near the center of the village. As she arrived nearby, trying to push past the assembled ninja, the sounds of explosions suddenly stopped.

Finally pushing past the first few rows of Leaf-nin, she managed to catch a glimpse of what had caused the fires. In the middle of the square, panting wildly on the burnt ground, was a giant black bat. There was silence.

A few heads turned towards her, she saw Neji and Sasuke a few feet off and on the other side of the square was Iyasu. _They think it's mine? Can't they tell? I should..._

"It's not mine!" she said, backing up a few steps. More heads turned to face her as the bat vanished in a puff of smoke. She took a few more steps back, trying to escape the square. The people around her moved away, surrounding her and drawing their weapons. _What the hell are these assholes doing? They don't know... do they? Damnit father, I never did anything wrong, so why did you start it now?_

She turned away, trying to run, but was stopped by a solid wall of blue figures, spacing out and moving forward slightly. They were closing in, too close for comfort, and Metsuki moved her fingers up to her bandana. _If I fight back, they will see it as a threat, but it's in defense. I never did anything... what the hell is going on?_

Suddenly, there was a combined rattle as a thousand weapons were hurled towards her. The last thing she saw was the form of the Godaime yelling something to a group of Anbu before another odd thing happened. About one second before the barrage of weapons reached her, a dome of fire exploded from the ground around her, completely encasing her. It had no warmth, and it burned an odd, greenish colour, but it easily knocked away the weapons before dying down and vanishing completely.

She looked up, and saw nine shapes surrounding her, each wearing red and black robes, each holding their hands in a seal, each with a deep gash running throught their head protectors. They surrounded her in a cricle, pushing back the Leaf-nin and even killing the closest few.

_Damnit, he started it again... but what about... _"Neji, Iyasu, Sasuke! Run! Call your Summons! You don't stand a chance!"

But before she could finish, the nine forms around her moved into action, each biting their thumbs and yelling, "Kuchhiyose no Jutsu!"

This was it, history would repeat itself. Metsuki stood from the ground, she would not allow this to happen again.


	11. Requiem

"RUN!!!" Metsuki pulled off her bandana and threw it aside where it burst into flame. The surrounding Akatsuki had all summoned a different creature and were sittin upon their backs, protecting her.

Her father sat on the back of the giant, black bat she had seen earlier. Beside him stood Shoku on his eagle summon's back, and Itachi on his other side on top of a mean-looking, black weasel. Kisame was on the back of a giant, serpent-like laviathan, and Zenji was riding a white wolf to match the byakugan in his eyes. Closest to her was a man from the Rain called Dante riding a compact, red dragonfly, beside him was Testu of the Sand on a large rattlesnake, Ryuu from the Grass on a large green dragon and the last, to the left of him, was Inu from the Stone on a large, black dog.

"Stop it, father!" she yelled, disregarding completely her promise to not loose any of their information.

"Stay back, Metsuki-sama," said Shoku, the only one to take notice and acknowledge her. The Akatsuki had not made their move, but were simply staring down the Leaf-nin around them.

"What do the Akatsuki want in Konoha?" questioned the Hokage calmly. "We have done nothing to deserve this sudden appearance."

"We have decided this is too dangerous for Metsuki. We are taking her back and disposing of you, for you know too much than can be good for you," said Houtan in the same, calm voice the Hokage had used. The Leaff-nin tensed at his words and Metsuki was looking around frantically. Her blue and pink eyes hardened, she would not allow them to do this again.

"Get away. Leave Konoha alone. I won't let you attack them," she said, clenching her fists. She no longer cared about blood or pain, but for the lives of the Leaf-nin. And that was exactly what her mother wanted.

Mother, she thought, closing her eyes. Her hand wrapped around the jewel on her necklace. Mother, lend me your power. I need it now. To make father understand that what he is doing is wrong.

"What are you trying to do, Metsuki?" asked Houtan, finally turning to look at her clearly.

She straightened and opened her eyes, glaring out at her father. He moved a second before the earth beneath him shot up in a large spike. The bat took to the air a second before its belly was impaled on the earth spike.

"Metsuki! We don't have enough time for this! Quit fooling around and sit still!" shouted her father, landing a few feet away. But he knew she had changed by just looking in her eyes. They were still pink and blue, but they were not cold and cruel, not how he had brought her up to be. No, her eyes were brighter, niot dead, and shimmering with fresh tears. It suddenly struck him how much she resembled her mother, and had it not been for her size and the streak of red in her hair, it would have been impossible to tell them apart.

"Leave this village or else I'll fully release it," she warned, still glaring at him. There was dead silence, but Houtan finally grinned. The bat vanished and he dropped to the ground, facing her. His gap was filled by the Akatsuki on either side which moved to cover for him.

"Then do that. You've never done that before. I would like to taste that power."

He was slightly taken aback at his willingness to engage her in battle with the seal fully released, but she knew she could take care of him. There would be no attacks, no side affects after this battle. She had her mother protecting her, and her mother would not let scum like him to harm her.

The patterns of the seal crawled across her skin, the intricate clouds lacing over her face and burning red as they melted into a new pattern. The ground around her shattered with the pressure of the building chakra, running outwards in a spiderweb pattern and sending pieces of stone and dirt fling around her. And as the pattern burned black and took its final, solid form, her eyes burned brightly, suddenly flaring to life, the red one burning blood red and the blue one shimmering a dark, navy blue. She had never felt so much power.

"The rest of you, deal with the village," ordered Houtan, preparing himself.

Before they could move, the earth began to spin, throwing them off balance as the earth split and spikes shot up all around, trapping the Akatsuki momentarily inside of a ring of earth. Metsuki moved quickly, dashing at Houtan and throwing her hands in front of her. The air spun around her arms and she skidded to a halt, throwing the balls of air towards her father. He fell into a crouch and they passed over his head.

Clouds began slowly gathering overhead, blocking out the moon as Houtan charged the girl, aiming to knock her out. But she was prepared, and the entire radius around her exploded into flame. The other summons had broken free from her barrier and were engaged in their own battles with the Leaf-nin.

She caught a glimpse of the two Uchiha's clashing with eachother, three giant dragonflies fighting with the black weasel as their masters clashed a little ways off, sharingan with sharingan. Neji was fighting with Zenji, his eagle summons diving over and over at the other Hyuuga's white wolf. Iyasu was nowhere in sight.

Explosions were happening everywhere, taking out many ninja at a time as the Akatsuki ruthlessly tore apart their ranks, moving with incredible speed and with killing intent. The battle had become so intense that nearby houses were being levelled completely, leaving this part of the village completely open.

Metsuki cursed the fact that there was no water around yet, as the clouds were still building, but she charged her father again anyways, sending shards of stone towards him as if they were senbon. A wall of pure chakra exploded around him and the needles shattered. He dodged another barrage and suddenly sped up. He moved so quickly, that to Metsuki's eyes, he was in front of ehr one moment, and behind her the next. She had no time to react before he had an arm around her neck and her arms pinned behind her back.

A raindrop fell on her cheek, followed by another and another until it began rauining steadily. Houtan realized this just in time to release her and jump back as teh water concentrated into a tight cyclone that was sent straight at his stomach. His bat was there in a moment, being summoned just in time to take the blow and vanish in an instant. Metsuki paused, dodging another blow from her father and deciding it was time to get serious.

She jumped back onto a cushion of compressed air that allowed her to hover above the ground as she began forming a long series of seals. She was now going to fully release her power.

The earth around her shot up and completely surrounded her along with a whirlwind of air. Before it completely covered her, a bolt of lightning struck from above and her body absorbed it, drawing from its power as her entire body was covered by the earth. As the rain fell from above, it began to harden into ice, making her appear as if she were a statue. She remained for only a moment in that state before the back of the statue bulged and shattered, two, long white wings shooting from beneath it. The rain began to melt the ice covering her and turned the earth to mud that slid off of her small body, revealing a new Metsuki.

She wore a curved, metal helmet, pure white embedded with gold designs and no eye slits, just solid, ivory-white metal. Her arms and legs were plated in the same metal, along with her chest, back and shoulders. She wore long, elbow-length gloves, and her necklace hanging out in the center of her chest, glinting in the faint light. She wore high, tightly-laced boots, unstained and perfectly white. She finished the transformation as the sides of her helmet glinted and two, metal, white wing designs shot out from either side, replicas of the softly feathered ones that were held behind her.

But her eyes unseeingly met Houtan, who had also made a change. He had an outfit to match hers, a green gem hanging on his chest and an equally elegant helmet. But his outfit was ebony black, and his wings had no soft feathers, but were dark and leathery, like a bat's. Instead of wing designs on his helmet, the bottom edge was lined with black spikes that resembled teeth.

The two shinobi faced eachother, and, reading eachtother's movements perfectly, both fell ito a crouch and shot into the air. A few heads below turned to see light and dark dancing across the sky above in the rain, bright flashes of chakra, Houtan's dark purple and Metsuki's light blue, shooting between them. Houtan had finally began acting seriously, he would aim to kill now. But so would Metsuki.

She dove from above as he winged up from below, and each brought a large amount of chakra to their bodies, forming drill-like points in front of them. They hit with incredible force, which was followed by a large explosion that threw them both backwards into the ground from high up. Metsuki hit the ground hard, skidding back for a long time before she rolled to a halt in a puddle of mud. She caught a glimpse of Zenji and neji fighting a bloody battle, but her eyes snapped back to where Houtan was standing slowly. She stood as well, facing him in silence.

This time when they charged, their bodies exploded with chakra. Light flooded the area around Metsuki and a dark, purple light overwhelmed Houtan, both cracking the air around them and weighing down the air with tremendous pressure. They met again in silence that was cruelly shattered with an atomic explosion that shook everyone, causing many to fall to their knees or be blown back a few feet. Metsuki grunted, thrown through the explosion, but her wings snapped opwn and she dived back in, spotting Houtan at the same time he spotted her. There next meeting caused another, larger explosion within the first which had not yet died down, followed by another and another.

She built up a tremendous amount of chakra to execute the next attack, her chakra burning throu Houtan's like a knife. But his swarmed over her blade and both were still affected by the others, and the force sent them back tens of feet where they skiided to a halt again, both breathing heavily in exaughstion.

Metsuki stood again and clenched her fists, her eyes hardening further under the helmet. Pain was burning through her body, but she ignored it. The light eminating from her condensed at her right hand, shooting out into a long, smooth katana. She rustled her wings and charged Houtan again, meeting his blast of chakra with her concentrated sword of light.

"Hikari no Yaiba!" She crouched low, one leg out to the side as she dragged it through the dirt, spinning up into the air and folding her wings about her thin frame before plunging earthwards directly towards him. Her wings unfurled elegantly, sending a shower of damp feathers raining down on him as her blade of light shot from its concealment.

It plunged directly through his chest as she collided with him, blood lightly spattering her downy feathers as the light around her faded. It was a clone. It vanished in a puff of smoke along with her sword of light, and she immediately spotted Houtan tearing apart the Leaf-nin on the other side of the flattened village square. And what was worse, he was charging directly at Neji who could not see him being preoccupied with Zenji. She took flight in a flash, darting towards her fasther, but she was too late. He was upon Neji in seconds.

A shimmering, silver-furred wolf suddenly jumped between the two, snarling and launching itself towards the Akatsuki. It took him down in a single leap, pinning him to the ground. On its back rode a small figure wearing a blue vest that was hanging open to show a blue shirt with blue flames on it. He wore black shorts and the exposed part of his legs were bandaged.

"Iyasu!" she shouted elatedly, breaking sharply.

"Who are you?" he asked, the wolf jumping back and letting Houtan up as he blasted it away.

"Metsuki!" she managed before confronting Houtan again. There was a drawn out scream as one of the Akatsuki fell to the ground in a puddle of blood, which distracted her long enough for Houtan to catch her in the stomach with a chackra-laden fist and send her flying backwards. She flipped in mid-air and wasted no time launching herself back at him. She slammed a foot into the ground and met him in mid air, bringing up her leg and delivering a spinning kick to the side of his head. But his attack hit home as well, and he hooked her foot, spinning her around. She landed hard on her back but her wings shot out with incredible strength, flipping her back to her feet.

The Akatsuki had underestimated the Leaf-nin, they were slowly being pushed back, although they had taken many with them. As she met Houtan again and they were both knocked back, she caught a glimpse of Sasuke, covered from head to toe in blood, sending a blast of fire directly at his brother, Itachi. She caught a glimpse of Neji as he delivered a fatal blow to Zenji, plunging his hand directly through the other Hyuuga's chest. Kisame was fighting with a number of shinobi, including Naruto, the fox kid, who was basically going berserk on the Akatsuki, red chakra flying everywhere.

Shoku and Ryuu were both fighting the Hokage, and although she kept getting injured, it healed immediately, unlike their wounds which were slowing them down now. Inu and Dante lay dead in the center of the square, and as she looked away she caught a glimpse of two green blurs she assumed to be Gai and Lee doing Tetsu in. Tetsu was incredibly fast, as fast as them, but he was no match for both of them at the same time.

Although the Akatsuki were being beaten down quickly, a number of Leaf-nin lay dead or dying, bodues scattered everywhere, even those of the innocent, villagers and even a few children who had not been able to run fast enough. The sight of a young boy sobbing onto his mother's body jolted Metsuki into a frenzy. But the sight of his men falling also jolted Houtan into a frenzy.

As they clashed with a new hatred for eachother, the battles around them began to die down, and finally, after another half hour of fighting, Sasuke ended the Akatsuki along with Naruto, both blasting Itachi back into a builing where a pool of blood spread out slowly from the base of his neck. The Leaf-nin were breathing heavily as they watched the two winged shinobi going at eachother with no less killing intent.

Neji recovered quickly and tried to step in to help Metsuki deal with her father, but he was thrown aside with incredible power by another explosion, where he skidded to a halt as if he were a regdoll thrown by a large dog. Despite the shouts form the Leaf-nin telling Metsuki to let the Akatsuki be dealt with by the jounin, Metsuki continued to duel with her father, the real one this time.

There was no going back for either of them. If Houtan died he would obviously no longer exist, if he won, he had no Akatsuki and he would be surrounded by Leaf-nin. If Metsuki lost she would be dead as well, but if she won she would be killed. She was the one who had brought the Akatsuki to the village in the first place, she was the cause of all the problems and the deaths of everyone that had died today.

She was blasted back into the wall beside Neji as her father was blasted in the opposite direction, Leaf-nin keeping their distance.

"Metsuki, are you alright? Let the others deal with the Akatsuki, they've already lost," argued Neji, trying to keep the fear from his voice. She pushed herself up and pulled off her white helmet, viewing the burning world in colour. She placed it on the ground beside her and pulled off her necklace, the key to her soul, her only restraint, and gave it to Neji.

"I'm going to kill him, please take care of this. It contains my half of the soul I share with my mother, I was sealed there at birth."

She jumped up and charged Houtan again, taking to the air and dancing across the flaming sky. They danced through the flame in a complicated pattern, but she was at a disadvantage. She smelled something other than wood burning, and when she tried to take off to meet her father again, her wings did not billow with wind. They were on fire. She flapped harder and eventually took off with dificulty, letting out a yell as she clashed with incredible force that sent her back into Neji, knocking him back into the wall.

"Metsuki! Please don't, you're going to get killed!" it was useless to try to keep the fear and concern from his voice as she forced her battered body to move again. He reached out and grabbed her wrist as she took a step away, her wings still smouldering. She did not resist as he pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her thin waist. She was crying, she tried to hold it back, but it was no use. Tears stung her eyes and burned familiar paths down her cheeks as she ground her teeth in frustration. She didn't want to cry anymore.

"I...I have to kill him right now. Let me go," she whispered, her ears picking up the shifting of rubble as her father also began to force himself up. But she pressed closer into his chest, she did not want him to let her go. Neji leaned forwards and brushed the hair from her face as she looked up. he leaned closer until he was inches from her, mouth hovering before hers before he pressed his lips into hers.

It stole her breath away, and her hands tightened, gently holding onto his shirt as she choked back more tears. _I_, she thought, fresh tears streaming down her cheeks. _I shouldn't do this. It will only hurt him more._ Her eyes fell to his chest as she broke away and she saw her trapped soul swilring in a melee of colours within the jewel that was now a pure white colour.

"Thank you for everything," she whispered stepping back. She could hear her father readying to attack and she turned, strangely calm despite the fact that what she was about to do was insane.

She charged at him one last time, forcing out all of her chakra and calling all of the elements around her. Fire, water, earth and air charged behind her, nipping at her heels. The red and brown mess of elements behind her swirled around and took the form of a dragon, snapping its teeth at her heels before she jumped into the air and it hit Houtan full in the stomach. But a second before it hit, he forced out a barrier of purple chakra, sliding a few feet back but holding his ground.

Metsuki flipped over him and landed in a crouch behind him, charging forwards and slamming a foot into the ground to launch herself fearlessly towards him. He spun around to meet her and blood spattered the ground. She gasped in pain, blood flying from her mouth as she looked down.

"Metsuki!" shouted Neji. She had her sword of light drawn and it was running clean through Houtan. Blood was dripping from his mouth which was curved up into a cruel smile.

A sword, black as ebony, ran clean through her breast and out between her shoulders. Blood was slowly dripping down the blade and pooling in the handle momentarily before spilling to the singed ground. Her wings were sagging behind her, vibrating slightly, but eventually falling still, the singed feathers brushing the ground as she relaxed her muscles, slumping to the ground along with her father. She was staring in horror and shock at her chest, eventually raising her free hand to touch the hot liquid as it flowed unstoppably from her. There was little pain, and she felt slightly better to see her father completely slumped forwards, unmoving.

"Metsuki..." Neji was beside her in seconds along with the remaining Leaf-nin. She was staring blankly forwards at the blood pooling around her, her own blood, and she eventually moved to pull the sword out. More blood gushed from the wound, staining her white outfit further. She could feel the lifeblood and heat leaving her body at an unpresidented rate, and was too numb to notice Neji cradling her. _It's not that bad_, she thought, slightly clouded eyes turning slowly to meet Neji's blank, white ones. That was a lie. She was simply trying to deny what was happening.

"I'm... dead," she whispered. Her vision began darkening until there was only a small amount of light entering into her dark mind. It was the light from the stone around Neji's neck, burning brighter than ever. She closed her eyes finally and the relief was instantaneous.

Neji was in shock at the blood covering his hands. He squeezed his eyes shut to try and block out the image, but all that did was bring a picture of Metsuki's faintly smiling face to mind. The jewel shimmered brightly once and Metsuki's voice, the happiest he had ever heard it before, exploded into his mind. _Goodbye Neji._

* * *

_AN: eh, sorry about the endin...I might continue the story, but probably not. Sorry if it's kinda depressing, butI wasn't feeling too happy whenI wrote it. Which was awhile ago._


End file.
